Patent ID: 8838961

Claim:
A method of deploying a security credential for an application deployed in a cloud, comprising: receiving a request to deploy the security credential, wherein the request specifies the application and includes authentication information for obtaining the security credential; retrieving the security credential using the authentication information; encrypting, by operation of one or more computer processors, the security credential; and transmitting the encrypted security credential to a cloud management system, wherein the cloud management system is configured to insert the encrypted security credential into a virtual machine instance associated with the application, and wherein the virtual machine instance, when deployed, is configured to transmit a decryption request including the encrypted security credential and metadata that identifies the deployed virtual machine instance to a cryptex server, wherein the cryptex server is configured to authenticate the application by comparing the metadata with attributes of the deployed virtual machine instance and is further configured to decrypt the encrypted security credential and return the decrypted security credential to the authenticated application.