AUTHENTICATING THE IDENTITY OF INITIATORS OF TCP CONNECTIONS

A Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) receiver receives a SYN segment from a TCP initiator that initiates a TCP handshake between the TCP initiator and a TCP server. A first value is extracted from a predefined portion of the SYN segment. A second value is computed using an authentication algorithm that includes at least using a cryptographic hash function that takes as input at least the source IP address of the encapsulating IP packet of the SYN segment and a shared secret between the TCP initiator and the TCP receiver. If the computed second value matches the extracted first value, then the TCP handshake is allowed to continue. If the computed second value does not match the extracted first value, then the TCP handshake is not allowed to continue.