(Internet Key Exchange) A method for establishing a security association (SA) that authenticates users, negotiates the encryption method and exchanges the secret key. IKE is used in the IPsec protocol. Derived from the ISAKMP framework for key exchange and the Oakley and SKEME key exchange techniques, IKE uses public key cryptography to provide the secure transmission of the secret key to the recipient so that the encrypted data may be decrypted at the other end. See IPsec and SA.