Method and apparatus to secure and protect data-centers and generalized utility-based cloud computing environments from uninvited guests in the form of both hardware and software

摘要

A method is implemented by a network device communicatively coupled to a datacenter to detect a presence of unauthorized software and hardware in the datacenter. The method includes initiating deployment of a virtual agent on a node in the datacenter, where the virtual agent is to perform a security scan of the node and store results of the security scan in a memory allocated to the virtual agent at the node, and where the results of the security scan are to be encrypted using a data encryption key. The method further includes initiating migration of the virtual agent to a preconfigured location, where the results of the security scan are to be extracted from the virtual agent and decrypted at the preconfigured location.