Patent ID: 7861078

Claim:
A method of communicating between at least a first network device and a separate, second network device residing on a communications network, the method comprising: (A) initiating a communication from the first network device to the second network device, the communication including at least an encrypted first exchange key defined in accordance with a key-exchange algorithm, the encrypted first exchange key encrypted using a first password-based key derived from a password, decryption of the encrypted first exchange key requiring use of a second password based key derived from the password and different than the first password-based key; (B) receiving at the first network device, from the second network device, a communication including at least proof of knowledge of a first session key for encrypting information to be exchanged between the first and second network devices, the first session key generated from the first exchange key, which was decrypted on the second network device using the second password-based key, and a second exchange key, defined in accordance with the key-exchange algorithm; (C) generating, on the first network device, a second session key based at least in part on the second exchange key; and (D) authenticating the second network device to the first network device based at least in part on the second session key and the proof of knowledge of the first session key.