Patent ID: 7415513

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving, by a network adapter having an offload protocol stack, a query; configuring the offload protocol stack of the network adapter to provide a programmable identity for the offload protocol stack of the network adapter, by: (i) determining that a vulnerability of a first protocol stack emulation of the offload protocol stack has been exposed; and (ii) configuring the offload protocol stack to emulate a second protocol stack, in response to determining that the vulnerability of the first protocol stack emulation has been exposed; generating a response to the query by processing the query in the configured offload protocol stack, wherein the response is based on the programmable identity, wherein the programmable identity of the offload protocol stack is capable of being provided by configuring the offload protocol stack to generate the response with an inconsistent signature, and wherein the response is generated with the inconsistent signature by randomly choosing among a plurality of alternative code paths to respond to the query; and sending, by the network adapter, the generated response, wherein the programmable identity prevents a correct identification of the offload protocol stack based on an analysis of the sent response to the query.