Patent ID: 7526085

Claim:
A network interface system for interfacing a host system with a network to provide outgoing data from the host system to the network and to provide incoming data from the network to the host system, the network interface system comprising: a bus interface system adapted to be coupled with a host bus in the host system and transfer data between the network interface system and the host system; a media access control system adapted to be coupled with the network and to transfer data between the network interface system and the network; a memory system coupled with the bus interface system and the media access control system, the memory system being adapted to store frames of the incoming and outgoing data being transferred between the network and the host system; and a security system coupled with the memory system, the security system being adapted to selectively perform security processing on the frames; wherein the security system comprises a key buffer and a pipeline adapted to perform an algorithm for either encryption, decryption, or authentication; the security system is configured to align the frames into blocks of an appropriate size for the algorithm and associate each block with a copy of a current key stored in the key buffer; the security system is adapted to internally generate a signal upon the last block of a frame being associated with a copy of the current key and, in response to the signal, to advance the current key in the key buffer to a key for a next frame; and the pipeline can process data blocks from two different frames at one time, even where the data blocks use different keys.