In method of protecting signaling messages in a hop-by-hop network communication link between a source node and a destination node, a source node public digital signature verification key and a respective source node private digital signature key associated with said public digital signature verification key are provided to the source node. The source node public digital signature verification key associated with the source node private digital signature key is also provided to the destination node. The source node builds a message including a sequence of Information Elements, and calculates, for each Information Element, an Information Element hash value. The source node also calculates a sequence hash value of a concatenation of the calculated Information Element hash values, and generates a source node digital signature by digitally signing the calculated sequence hash value. An intermediate node receives and forwards the signaling message to the destination node.