SECURE DATA PROCESSING METHOD AND SYSTEM

The present invention concerns a secure data processing method and system in which the user or operator of the system can trust that all of the software and hardware components of the system have been authenticated. The invention provides a data processing system in which there is a central processor unit, memory and a security circuit in the form of an application specific integrated circuit. The security circuit has a cryptographic engine and a cryptographic key store. The cryptographic engine operates on the contents of the cryptographic key store to generate a digital signature. Means are provided to generate a digital signature from a software or hardware component to be checked for authenticity and to compare the digital signature from the component with the generated digital signature. An indication of the authenticity of the component is generated as a result of the comparison. The components of the system that can be checked include the boot firmware for the system, the operating system and plug-in cards for the system.