Patent ID: 8705743

Claim:
A method of establishing a secure end-to-end communication channel for sending secure messages between a first device associated with a first communication network and a second device associated with a second communication network, and wherein at least one of the devices includes security data for generating such secure messages, the method comprising: establishing a control plane connection between the first device and an IP-based Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) core of the first network, the control plane connection being protected by a security architecture; securely establishing key information between the first device and a key management center (KMC) of the associated first network using the control plane connection and corresponding security architecture; transmitting the key information from the KMC to the IMS core of the first network; transmitting the key information from the IMS core to an IMS core of the second network; and using the key information to establish a secure end-to-end communication channel between the first device and the second device for sending secure messages therebetween, the key information being usable to enable the first network core to interpret intercepted secure messages sent between the first and second devices.