Patent ID: 8453257

Claim:
A method for securing distributed deduplication activities in a deduplicating storage management system, the storage management system containing a source computing system connected over a network to a target computing system, the method comprising: receiving, by use of a processor, a query from the source computing system inquiring whether a previously stored data chunk having a specified hash and a specified length corresponding to a source-provided data chunk of a data file is stored on the target computing system; responding with a status of the previously stored data chunk on the target computing system if trust is established between the target computing system and the source computing system; detecting unauthorized access to the previously stored data chunk on the target computing system if trust is not established between the target computing system and the source computing system by: responding that the previously stored data chunk is not stored on the target computing system if the previously stored data chunk is stored on the target computing system and trust is not established between the target computing system and an authorization level for the source computing system is less than an authorization level for the stored data chunk; requesting the source-provided data chunk from the source computing system; receiving the requested data chunk from the source computing system; validating the requested source-provided data chunk on the target computing system; creating a link from the source-provided data chunk to the previously stored data chunk on the target computing system if the requested source-provided data chunk is validated; and closing deduplication from the source computing system to the target computing system if the requested source-provided data chunk is not validated.