Patent ID: 8656185

Claim:
A method of preventing compromise of first data stored in a volatile memory communicatively coupled to a first processor, the first data provided via communication of first signals between the first processor and an input of the memory, comprising the steps of monitoring the memory to detect tampering; if tampering is detected, performing steps comprising: decoupling the memory from the first processor; autonomously generating second signals independently of the first processor, the second signals having data comprising control, address, and zeroization data as second data for the memory; providing the generated second signals to the input of the memory; ameliorating remanence of the first data in the memory due to memory cell charge decay time, hot carrier effects, and electromigration by storing the second data as applied zeroization data to overwrite the first data stored in the memory at the generated address with the second data; reading the stored zeroization data; verifying that the read zeroization data matches the applied zeroization data; and if the read zeroization data does not match the applied zeroization data, applying further zeroization data and storing the further zeroization data.