Patent ID: 7558877

Claim:
A method of securing communication between at least two members of a group, wherein each member is an autonomous system comprising one or more network devices, the method including the steps of: for a first communication between a first subset of members, forwarding, to at least one member of the group, a group security association corresponding to the group; receiving, from the at least one member of the group, route information enabling communication with each of the one or more network devices of the autonomous system corresponding to the member, the route information identifying a border router that should be used as the next hop to the at least one member of the group; identifying at least one other member of the group; and reflecting the route information received from the at least one member of the group to the at least one other member of the group, including the step of securing the route information using the group security association, and for a second communication between a second subset of members, securing route information using the same group security association used for the first communication between the first subset of members.