Patent ID: 7921463

Claim:
A method comprising: performing a handshake exchange between a wireless supplicant of a host controller and a network interface device driver of the host controller to produce one or more integrity protection information, wherein the host controller resides in a wireless communication node, and wherein the one or more integrity protection information is not accessible to applications operating on the host controller other than the network interface device driver, wherein the one or more integrity protection information is based on one or more encryption keys; generating a first data integrity value of a protocol data unit (PDU) at the network interface device driver, wherein the first data integrity value is based on the one or more integrity protection information; storing the first data integrity value in a message integrity check field of the PDU; providing the one or more integrity protection information and the PDU, separately, to a network interface device operatively coupled to the network interface device driver, wherein the network interface device resides in the wireless communication node; generating a second data integrity value of the PDU at the network interface device based on the one or more integrity protection information provided to the network interface device; comparing the first data integrity value of the PDU and the second data integrity value of the PDU at the network interface device; identifying a condition indicative of integrity of the PDU based on the comparison of the first and second data integrity values; and transmitting the PDU through the network interface device if the condition indicative of integrity is met.