Patent ID: 8214653

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for securing firmware, comprising: under control of one or more computer systems configured with executable instructions, using an asymmetric keying protocol to obtain a private key and a corresponding public key, the private key capable of being used to encrypt information and the public key capable of being used to decrypt the information encrypted using the private key; providing the public key to a peripheral device on a host machine, the peripheral device including updateable firmware; maintaining the private key in a secure location external to the host machine; encrypting a firmware image for use in updating the firmware on the peripheral device using the private key; and transmitting the encrypted firmware image to the peripheral device, the peripheral device being operable to use the public key to decrypt the encrypted firmware image and store information from the firmware image to the firmware on the peripheral device, wherein an attempt to update the firmware will be unsuccessful unless information for the attempt is encrypted using the corresponding private key.