Patent ID: 9740872
Date: 2017-08-22
CPC Classifications: G06F,H04L

Claim:
1. A method for protecting data on a computing system, the method comprising: executing, under a trusted operating system, an access control component that controls access to protected data; identifying, by the access control component, an input or output hardware component of the computing system, the input or output hardware component accessible by a guest operating system different from the trusted operating system; disabling, by the access control component, the identified input or output hardware component by blocking one or more communications with the identified input or output hardware component through one or more virtual representations of devices attached to the computing system to preclude access to the identified input or output hardware component by the guest operating system; in response to disabling the identified input or output hardware component, sending, by the access control component, a decryption key to the guest operating system; and accessing, by at least one software application running under the guest operating system, the protected data, wherein the at least one software application is permitted to access the protected data through use of the decryption key received from the access control component.