Patent ID: 8375207

Claim:
A trust centre for a wireless personal area network arranged to perform authentication of communication devices joining the wireless personal area network; the trust centre being operatively coupled to a security server, which is arranged to store a plurality of communication device keys associated with communication devices known to the network; the trust centre being further arranged: upon a new communication device joining the wireless personal area network, to request from the security server a communication device key associated with the joining communication device for a purpose of authenticating the joining communication device; to perform mutual authentication between the trust centre and the joining communication device by sending to the joining communication device a challenge encrypted with the communication device key for the joining communication device and to receive from the joining communication device a further encrypted challenge sent in response to the encrypted challenge from the trust centre; to generate a link key for use by an authenticated device that has performed the mutual authentication with the trust centre and for which a mutual link with another authenticated device has been requested, wherein the trust centre verifies that the request originates from a previously authenticated device, and upon verification sends a verification response to the authenticated device; and to send the link key in encrypted form to the authenticated device.