A communication device configured to perform packet reception processing, with the header of a packet including a header sequence and a Reed-Solomon code, includes: a header check sequence inspecting unit configured to detect, based on the header check sequence included in a received packet header, an error of the header; a Reed-Solomon encoding unit configured to encode the header of a received packet other than the Reed-Solomon code to generate a Reed-Solomon code; a Reed-Solomon code inspecting unit configured to detect whether or not the Reed-Solomon code generated by the Reed-Solomon encoding unit is completely identical to the Reed-Solomon code within the received packet header; and a processing control unit configured to control payload processing of a received packet in accordance with the inspection results of the header check sequence inspecting unit and the Reed-Solomon code inspecting unit.