Patent ID: 6981138

Claim:
A system comprising: a control module to obtain an access control entry corresponding to a file to be accessed by the system, wherein the access control entry includes a symmetric key encrypted with a public key of a public/private key pair; a key cache to maintain a plurality of mappings each of which maps an access control entry to a symmetric key; a comparator, communicatively coupled to the control module, to check whether one of the plurality of mappings corresponds to the received access control entry; and a cryptographic engine, communicatively coupled to the control module, to: use, if one of the plurality of mappings corresponds to the received access control entry, the symmetric key to which the received access control entry maps to decrypt the file, and use, if one of the plurality of mappings does not correspond to the received access control entry, the private key of the public/private key pair to decrypt the symmetric key, and then use the decrypted symmetric key to decrypt the file.