Patent ID: 7802090

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a request to perform encapsulating security payload (ESP) processing for data exchanged between a node and an other node over a secure network connection established via an Internet Protocol security (IPsec) security association; obtaining information associated with the IPsec security association, the information to indicate a prepend data unit size for an initialization vector, a generated data unit size for the initialization vector, and an append data unit size for the initialization vector; and determining a composition of each initialization vector included with encrypted data exchanged between the node and the other node based, at least in part, on the prepend, generated, and append data unit size for the initialization vector; maintaining one or more parameters associated with a cryptographic algorithm and a mode to implement the cryptographic algorithm, wherein the one or more parameters include: a prepend value to prepend to a generated section of each initialization vector included with encrypted data exchanged between the node and the other node, the given value having the prepend data unit size; an append value to append to the generated section of each initialization vector included with encrypted data exchanged between the node and the other node, the other given value having the append data unit size; and a cipher block data unit size associated with one or more blocks of encrypted data exchanged between the node and the other node, wherein the initialization vector includes the prepend value, the append value, and a generated value within the generated section, wherein the initialization vector initializes the mode to implement the cryptographic algorithm.