Patent ID: 7647508

Claim:
A method comprising: transmitting, by a communication node, an information element (IE), the IE including a feature field indicating whether the communication node operates in accordance with an integrity protection protocol specifically for management and control frames, and the IE further including an enforcement field that advertises whether the integrity protection protocol for management and control frames is mandatory; and generating, by the communication node, a pairwise transient key (PTK), the PTK including a first plurality of keys and a pairwise integrity key (PIK), wherein the first plurality of keys are configured to protect an integrity of data frames transmitted by the communication node and the PIK is configured to protect an integrity of management frames or control frames transmitted by the communication node, wherein management frames and control frames are dedicated to management traffic and control traffic, respectively, and wherein data frames includes data or payload information, and wherein the first plurality of keys and the PIK are different keys; generating, by the communication node, a management or a control frame including one or more fields that are derived from the PIK to protect the integrity of the management or the control frame, wherein the management or control frames further include a frame counter field to detect a replay of the management or control frame, wherein the frame counter field is incremented by the communication node after generation of individual management or control frames, and wherein the frame counter field is reinitialized each time a PIK is generated; and transmitting, by the communication node, the generated management or a control frame.