Patent ID: 8781127

Claim:
A device comprises: a processing module operable to issue a decryption request to decrypt at least a portion of an encrypted file; a key store memory operable to store a plurality of cryptographic keys, control words and initial vectors; a rule set memory operable to store a set of rules for accessing at least some of the plurality of cryptographic keys; a plurality of cryptographic clients, wherein a cryptographic client of the plurality of cryptographic clients is operable to: issue a request to access a control word of the control words or an initial vector of the initial vectors; and when access to the control word or initial vector is granted, execute another cryptographic function regarding at least a portion of the control word or the initial vector to produce another cryptographic result; and a key store arbitration module operable to: determine whether the request to access the control word or initial vector is valid; when the request to access the control word or initial vector is valid, interpret the request for access to the control word or initial vector to produce an interpreted request; access the rule set memory based on the interpreted request to retrieve rule of the set of rules; and grant access to the control word or initial vector in accordance with the rule.