1. A method of operating a data communication network comprising a multiple Network Interface Cards (NICs), Central Processing Units (CPUs), and Data Memory Buffers (DMBs) to efficiently verify hardware-trust of the data communication network, the method comprising: the NICs receiving user data and responsively transferring data receipt interrupts for the user data; the CPUs receiving the data receipt interrupts transferred by the NICs and responsively transferring buffer descriptors for the user data; the DMBs receiving the buffer descriptors for the user data transferred by the CPUs and responsively transferring the buffer descriptors for delivery to the NICs; the NICs receiving the buffer descriptors for the user data and responsively transferring the user data for delivery to the DMBs; the DMBs receiving and buffering the user data: and a master one of the NICs transferring CPU hardware-trust validation challenge for delivery to a master one of the CPUs, the master CPU hashing the validation data with its physically-embedded, hardware-trust code to generate and transfer a CPU hardware-trust validation result, and the master NIC processing the CPU hardware-trust validation result to verify hardware-trust of the master CPU.