Embodiments of the invention relate to apparatus, system and method for security extensions to the IETF Transport Layer Protocol (TLS) and IPsec standards that enable wireless devices to perform power-efficient and streamlined security packet processing. Embodiments of the invention enable a processor to use its existing cryptographic processing engines (e.g., AES-CCM) to perform TLS and IPsec security processing. Packets processed for WLAN and TLS security are processed pipelined, eliminating the multi-loop processing that currently exists, and decreases power consumed to process each packet. In addition, the host/chipset complex is woken up after all security processing has been done in the WNIC.