Patent ID: 8116455

Claim:
A method for securely booting a computer, the method comprising: performing a cryptographic authentication procedure to establish a secure communication channel between a smart card and an encryption processor; loading a twice wrapped master key, wherein the twice wrapped master key has been first encrypted with a key associated with the encryption processor, and then encrypted a second time with a key associated with the smart card wherein the associated keys from both the encryption processor and the smart card are required to decrypt the twice wrapped master key; decrypting, by the smart card, the twice wrapped master key using the key associated with the smart card, the decrypting by the smart card revealing a single wrapped master key; transmitting the single wrapped master key to the encryption processor via the secure communication channel; and decrypting, by the encryption processor, the single wrapped master key using the key associated with the encryption processor wherein the key associated with the smart card and the key associated with the encryption processor are required to decrypt the twice wrapped master key, and wherein the decrypted master key is required to boot the computer.