Patent ID: 8892862

Claim:
A method for executing a predetermined software component which is verifiable against integrity measurements, the method comprising: a) providing a first mapping from logical identifiers to software component enabled status flags; b) providing a second mapping from the logical identifiers and previous software component statuses information to actual integrity measurement certificates containing verification data; c) looking up the first mapping for a given logical identifier identifying the predetermined software component to get a status flag indicating whether the predetermined software component is enabled; d) if the status flag indicates that the predetermined software component is not enabled, i) looking up the second mapping for a given logical identifier identifying a verification failure certificate of the predetermined software component and previous statuses of the predetermined software component to get a disabled integrity measurement certificate, and ii) updating a current integrity measurement to include an indication of a disabled status of the predetermined software component, the current integrity measurement being stored within the disabled integrity measurement certificate; and e) if the status flag indicates that the predetermined software component is enabled, i) looking up the second mapping for a given logical identifier identifying a verification certificate of the predetermined software component and the previous statuses of the predetermined software component to get an integrity measurement certificate, ii) calculating a check value of the predetermined software component, iii) verifying that an integrity measurement value of the predetermined software component matches an integrity measurement value stored within the integrity measurement certificate and that the calculated check value of the predetermined software component matches a check value stored within the integrity measurement certificate, iv) updating, if the verification is successful, a current integrity measurement to include an indication of the check value, the current integrity measurement being stored within the integrity measurement certificate, and v) executing the predetermined software component if the verification is successful.