Methods and apparatus are provided for using explicit initialization vectors in both encryption and decryption processing. In one example, a sender generates an initialization vector, identifies cryptographic keys, encrypts data using the initialization vectors and the cryptographic keys, and transmits the encrypted data in a packet along with the initialization vector. A receiver identifies cryptographic keys, extracts the initialization vector from the received packet, and decrypts the encrypted data using the cryptographic keys and the initialization vector extracted from the received packet.