Anti-replay method for unicast and multicast ipsec

Abstract

A method for managing a packet in a communication system between two or more endpoints, a sender and one or more recipients, comprises receiving a first packet comprising a source identifier that uniquely identifies a sender of the first packet and a current source time assigned to the first packet by the sender, determining a received time for the first packet, retrieving a cached source time assigned by the sender to a second packet that was received prior to receiving the first packet, and determining whether to discard or process the first packet based on the current source time, the received time, and the cached source time. The current source time, the received time, and the cached time, in addition to predetermined parameters such as a maximum age and an anti-replay window allows a recipient to determine whether to process or discard a packet.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.