A system to protect MAC control messages is presented. In one embodiment, the system comprises a processor, a memory coupled to the processor, and a communication device coupled to the processor to communicate wirelessly over multiple sub-channels in an orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) wireless network. The communication device is operable to determine that a MAC control message is protected if an indicator within the MAC control message is set. The communication device validates, if the indicator is set, integrity of the MAC control message in conjunction with a CMAC (cipher-message authentication code) tuple concatenated with the MAC control message.