Patent ID: 11870890
Assignee: MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 0:
1. A computing system for automatically enabling members of a user group to control access rights of a vault to new members of the user group without relying on a designated group manager, comprising:
a processor; and
a computer-readable storage medium in communication with the processor, the computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereupon which, when executed by the processor, cause the computer to:
control access to a vault storing encrypted secret data generated by encrypting secret data using a secret key, wherein a first encrypted secret key is generated by encrypting the secret key using a vault key that is associated with the user group, and wherein a first encrypted vault key generated by encrypting the vault key using a first public key of a first private-public key pair associated with a first identity of a first user of the user group, wherein access for individual users to the vault is controlled by a membership status with the user group;
receive membership data controlling communication between individual users of the user group in a communication session, the membership data indicating a second identity of a second user of the user group;, in response to receiving the membership data indicating the addition of the second user of the user group, communicate an update command to a first client device associated with the first user, the update command causing the first client device to generate a second encrypted vault key by encrypting the vault key using a second public key of a second private-public key pair associated with the second identity of the second user of the user group; and
receive the second encrypted vault key for storage of the second encrypted vault key in the vault in association with the second identity of the second user, the vault granting the second user access to the second encrypted vault key based on a membership status with the user group, wherein the membership data indicating the second identity of the second user and the second encrypted vault key enables the second client device of the second user to encrypt a new vault key for a third user to provide the third user with access to the secret data.