Patent ID: 8095787

Claim:
A method for buffering SSL handshake messages prior to computing a message digest for the SSL handshake, the method comprising: (a) conducting, by an appliance with a client, an SSL handshake, the SSL handshake comprising a plurality of SSL handshake messages; (b) storing, by the appliance, the plurality of SSL handshake messages until a client finish message corresponding to the SSL handshake is received and prior to computing a message digest using any of the plurality of SSL handshake messages; (c) communicating, by the appliance to a message digest computing device in response to receiving a client finish message corresponding to the SSL handshake, a request to compute a single message digest, the request comprising the plurality of SSL handshake messages; (d) receiving, by the appliance from the message digest computing device, the single message digest for the plurality of SSL handshake messages; (e) determining, by the appliance, that the single message digest matches a message digest included in the SSL client finish message; and (f) completing, by the appliance with the client, the SSL handshake.