We describe a method, device and system for communicating to a peer via a network. A segment is received formatted according to a first network protocol, the received segment having clear-text payload data in a payload portion of the received segment. A cryptographic operation is performed on at least a portion of the clear-text payload data of the received segment, according to a cryptographic protocol, and a PDU is embedded according to the cryptographic protocol into the payload portion of the received segment. Header data, in a header portion of the received segment, is to account for a change to the received segment resulting from the cryptographic operation performance. The received segment, having the embedded PDU according to the cryptographic protocol and the adjusted header data, is transmitted to a peer via the network.