Patent ID: 7809955

Claim:
A computer node, comprising: a network interface; a processor communicatively coupled with the network interface and having an operating system executing thereon; and a hardware element communicatively coupled with the processor, wherein the hardware element is not managed by the operating system, wherein the computer node receives one or more managing software elements and one or more security dependencies for managed software elements via the network interface and installs the managing software elements on the computer node under management of the operating system, and wherein the computer node executes the managing software elements under management of the operating system whereby operation of managed software elements is conditioned on determinations of trustworthiness of other managed software elements made using the security dependencies, findings of untrustworthiness are logged in a log file maintained on the computer node, and integrity of the managing software elements, the security dependencies and the log file are verified at least in part by validating one or more hash values cryptographically signed by the hardware element.