Patent ID: 8560856

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a network node configured to implement a lightweight secure neighbor discovery (LSEND) protocol for securing neighbor discovery protocols (NDP) for energy-aware devices, wherein the network node is configured to wirelessly communicate with a host node, wherein the network node is configured to exchange LSEND protocol messages with the host node, wherein implementing the LSEND protocol comprises: sending a router advertisement (RA) message to the host node; and receiving a first neighbor solicitation (NS) message for address registration from the host node, wherein the RA message, the NS message, or both comprise a cryptographically generated address (CGA) parameters and digital signature option that comprises: a type field that is set to a value that indicates that the option is a CGA parameters and digital signature option; a length field that indicates a length of the option; a CGA parameters field that comprises a CGA parameters data structure; a digital signature field that comprises an elliptic curve digital signature algorithm (ECDSA) generated digital signature; a padding field that is set so that the length of the option is a multiple of about 8 bits; and a padding length field that indicates a length of the padding field; and a signature length field that indicates a length of the digital signature field.