The present invention is directed to a system and method for propagation of security information for secure information exchange. Existing and new authentication information are gathered and combined into the same header. The header is attached to electronic document data encrypted by a client device and sent via a computer network to a document processing device. The document processing device, upon receipt of the header and document first decrypts the header and uses the existing authentication information to qualify the new authentication information by validating the existing authentication information through a trusted authentication mechanism. Once validated, the new authentication information is available for future document processing operations by the document processing device and other trusted document processing devices.