Patent ID: 8819446

Claim:
A processor in a computer system, said processor comprising a mechanism supporting a Secure Object that comprises information that is cryptographically protected so that other software on said computer system cannot access or undetectably tamper with said information, thereby protecting both a confidentiality and an integrity of the Secure Object information from other software while making an unencrypted form of the Secure Object information available to the Secure Object itself during execution of the Secure Object, wherein said mechanism comprises: a crypto engine that decrypts and integrity-checks Secure Object information as said Secure Object information moves into the processor from an external memory and encrypts and updates an integrity value for the Secure Object information as said Secure Object information moves out of the processor to the external memory; and a protected key storage area, that is not accessible by software, used to store keys used for decryption and integrity-checking of Secure Object information when this information is moved into said processor from said external memory and for encryption of Secure Object information and generation of an integrity value as said information is moved out of said processor back to said external memory; and a machine instruction included in said Secure Object that includes a handle that is not usable by other software, the machine instruction using said handle to load a crypto key into said key storage area used by said crypto engine for decrypting said Secure Object, wherein the processor generates a cryptographic integrity exception if said handle of said Secure Object is used by any other software.