In one embodiment, a sender node in a serial network identifies a message identifier for a packet to be sent by the sender node. The sender node selects a cyclical redundancy check (CRC) initialization vector associated with the message identifier. The sender node generates a CRC value for the packet, based on the selected initialization vector. The sender node sends the packet via the serial network. The sent packet includes the message identifier and the generated CRC value. In turn, a receiver node that receives the packet uses the generated CRC value to authenticate the sender node.