Patent ID: 8924720

Claim:
A key management server for generating cryptographic keys, the key management server comprising: a key database to store cryptographic keys; a key management module to generate an asymmetric key pair including a customer public key and a customer private key for a customer; and a communication module to (i) transfer the customer public key generated by the key management module to a cloud service provider and (ii) receive, from a host computing device of the cloud service provider and in response to transferring the customer public key to the cloud service provider, an encrypted symmetric key that has been extracted from metadata of an encrypted virtual machine image by the host computing device, wherein the encrypted symmetric key is encrypted with the customer public key; wherein the key management module is further to decrypt the encrypted symmetric key using the customer private key; wherein the communication module is further to receive a host public key from the host computing device; wherein the key management module is further to re-encrypt the decrypted symmetric key using the host public key; wherein the communication module is further to transfer the re-encrypted symmetric key to the host computing device, and wherein the encrypted virtual machine image is decrypted by the decrypted symmetric key subsequent to decryption of the re-encrypted symmetric key.