Patent ID: 7483409

Claim:
A method for a wireless router assisted security handoff in a multi-hop communications network comprising: at a mobile station: selecting a wireless router which is a first hop to an access point for assisting in a secure handoff; retrieving a sequence number (SN) of the wireless router and an access point media access control (MAC) address (AA) of the access point from a hello message received from the wireless router; generating a pairwise transient key (PTK) using the SN and the AA; sending a first handoff message including a re-association request from the mobile station to the wireless router; at the wireless router: tunneling the first handoff message securely to the access point; at the access point: receiving the first handoff message from the wireless router; generating the pairwise transient key (PTK) using the SN and the AA; validating a message integrity of the first handoff message using the PTK; generating a second handoff message including a re-association response using the PTK; sending the second handoff message to the wireless router; and at the wireless router: tunneling the second handoff message securely to the mobile station; and at the mobile station: validating a message integrity of the second handoff message using the PTK; and establishing communications between the mobile station and the access point.