Patent ID: 8607070

Claim:
A secure storage system comprising: a crypto-engine, wherein the crypto-engine includes a random number generator, a hash function, a general encryption engine, and a data encryption engine; a storage device coupled to the crypto-engine, wherein the storage device includes a storage array comprising a public partition that is accessible to the general public, a secure partition that is accessible only by a two-level password authentication, and a system partition that is accessible only by the secure storage system; and wherein the secure storage system performs the following functions comprising: receiving a first user password from a host system; retrieving a default master password from the secure storage system; hashing the first user password and the default master password, wherein the hashed first user password and the hashed default master password are stored in the secure storage system; generating an access key using a random number generator and encrypting the access key with the first user password to create a first encrypted access key and with the default master password to create a second encrypted access key, wherein the first and the second encrypted access keys are stored in the secure storage system; receiving a second user password from the host system; hashing the second user password to compare the hashed first user password to the hashed second user password which serves as a first level of the two-level password authentication; in response to matching hashed first and second user passwords, decrypting the first encrypted access key using the second user password as a key to retrieve and apply the access key for access gating to the secure storage system which serves as a second level of the two-level password authentication; and utilizing another encryption/decryption engine to process data between the host system and the secure storage system until a user session is terminated.