Patent ID: 8161283

Claim:
A method for establishing a secure route in a wireless network, the method comprising: receiving at a first node in the wireless network a route request message from a second node, where the second node and the first node have not been mutually authenticated; identifying, by the first node, a direct route to the second node as an ephemeral route, wherein the ephemeral route comprises a non-secure route for forwarding routing information and not forwarding user data packets; forwarding the route request message including an indication of the ephemeral route between the first node and the second node from the first node to a third node; transmitting a route reply message from the third node to the first node; triggering a mutual authentication between the first node and the second node, in response to receiving at the first node the route reply message from the third node; and forwarding the route reply message from the first node to the second node in response to the mutual authentication, wherein the route request message received at the first node comprises an insecure link indication field set to “false”, and the insecure link indication field is set to “true” when the route request message is forwarded from the first node to the third node, whereby the first node indicates that it is first to receive the route request message over a non-secure link.