A security method and system for Layer Independent Passive Clustering (LIPC) is presented. The inventive method and system maintains the states in the LIPC cluster formation protocol while adding a ‘Trusworthy’ event to each state and provides a methodology that depends on the state of the transmitting node to quantify Trustworthy and derive a Trust Confidence Value (TCV) to represent the level of confidence in quantifying ‘Trustworthy’. The invention dynamically computes a degree of trustworthiness for each participating network node and eliminates nodes from participating in the PC cluster formation protocol and packet forwarding if they do not meet established trust metrics. The security solution can also apply to PC-based Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs). The novel system and method applies a multidimensional set of security algorithms to protect the LIPC cluster formation protocol from malicious attacks that compromise cluster formation and secure routing.