Patent ID: 8103909

Claim:
A method comprising: calculating, with an auxiliary circuit within a computing device, an integrity verification value for a boot component of the computing device, wherein the boot component comprises program instructions required for execution by a processor of the computing device to place the computing device into an operating mode, wherein the auxiliary circuit is coupled to the processor by a first bus; determining whether the calculated integrity verification value is associated with an acceptable boot component; and replacing, with the auxiliary circuit of the computing device, the boot component with a copy of a trusted version of the boot component when the integrity verification value is not associated with an acceptable boot component, wherein replacing the boot component with a copy of a trusted version of the boot component comprises: with the auxiliary circuit, reading the copy of the trusted version of the boot component from a trusted storage medium on the device, wherein the trusted storage medium is coupled to the auxiliary circuit by a second bus and is inaccessible by the processor; and overwriting the boot component in a primary storage of the computing device with the copy of the trusted version of the boot component.