Patent ID: 8479008

Claim:
At a computer system including a processor and a memory, in a computer networking environment including a plurality of computing systems, a computer-implemented method for providing a cloud keying and signing service, the method comprising: an act of instantiating a signing service configured to sign software packages; an act of receiving at the signing service a signing request from a publisher requesting that a selected software package be signed, wherein the signing request includes a computed hash of the selected software package; an act of the signing service generating a private and public key pair on behalf of the publisher; the signing service digitally signing the hash with the public key; the signing service returning the digitally signed hash to the publisher, wherein the digitally signed hash is subsequently attached to the selected software package; the signing service receiving, subsequent to returning the digitally signed hash to the publisher, a symmetric key from the publisher, wherein the symmetric key is used by the publisher to encrypt the selected software package; wherein the symmetric key is encrypted with the public key; and an act of the signing service storing the private key of the generated key pair in a secure data store.