Briefly, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention, an apparatus and method to provide authentication and secure communication is provided. In one example, the method may include transmitting machine credentials of a first device, wherein the machine credentials are used to authenticate the first device so that the first device is able to communicate with a second device after the first device transitions from a first power state to a second power state in response to a command received by the first device from another device, wherein power consumption of the first device in the first power state is less than the power consumption of the first device in the second power state. The first device may be used in either a wired or wireless network.