Patent ID: 8019989

Claim:
A method of selectively granting a public-key certificate to a managed node in an IT network having certification capability, the managed node having an initialization time associated with the installation time of a software agent in the managed node, the method comprising: detecting, by a computer system, the initialization time; after the initialization time, receiving, by the computer system, a request to grant the certificate from the managed node; detecting, by the computer system, the time of the request by the managed node; responding, by the computer system, to the detected times by ascertaining whether an initialization-to request time interval between the detected initialization time and the detected request time is within a maximum time interval for automatic certificate grant; automatically granting, by the computer system, the requested certificate to the requesting managed node only if the ascertained initialization-to-request time interval is within the maximum time interval, and if the ascertained initialization-to-request time interval is outside the maximum time interval, preventing the automatic granting of the requested certificate to the requesting managed node.