Abstract: The present invention relates to a method of protecting user information against manipulations. In order to provide a high level of protection against any kind of manipulation without increasing the overhead significantly a method is proposed comprising the steps of: a) storing said user infonnation in user channel packets of a user channel, b) assigning state infonnation to said user channel packets said state infonnation being used to indicate if a user channel packet has been manipulated and/or is unstable or not, and c) storing said state information assigned to said user channel packets in an additional hidden channel embedded in said user channel, said state information assigned to a user channel packet being stored in the associated hidden channel packet. The invention relates further to a corresponding method of reading user information.