PROTECTING ACCESS TO A HARDWARE DEVICE THROUGH USE OF AN AGGREGATE IDENTITY INSTANCE

A computer-implemented method, system, and/or computer program product controls access to an appliance. A host system receives, from a client computer, appliance-specific user data that includes a user password, a user-created name of an appliance, a user identifier, and a network address of the client computer, and then concatenates the appliance-specific user data with a host name of the host system to create and store an Aggregate Identity Instance (AII) in the host system. The host system receives, from the client computer, a request to access the appliance, and determines whether appliance-specific user data sent with the request is in the AII in the host system. If so, then the host system matches the user-created name of the appliance to an address of the appliance; establishes a session between the client computer and the appliance; and uses the AII to encrypt and decrypt data.