The type of security currently in effect on the switch port. A value of none(1) indicates that the port is not currently in the secure mode of operation. A value of manual-authorize(2) indicates that any packet, whose source addresse does not match one of the addresses authorized on the port by management via the eSwitchSecurityPortAuthTable, is discarded upon receipt. A value of auto-authorize(3) indicates that upto a maximum of N addresses will be added by the switch to the eSwitchSecurityPortAuthTable automatically, when a packet with a source address corresponding to one of these addresses is seen on the port. 'N' is a user-settable value that may be configured through the following object: eSwitchSecurityPortMaxAutoAuthAddr Further, any packet with a source address that does not match one of the addresses in the eSwitchSecurityAuthTable is discared upon receipt. Depending on the implementation, a station may have to send 1 or more frames before its address gets 'auto-authorized' on the port. The policy used to select stations for authorization (e.g., FCFS, random, etc.) is left to individual implementations. The N authorized addresses may be read by management from the following object: eSwitchSecurityPortAuthorizedAddressTable. All authorized addresses on the port are purged whenever the value of this object is modified.