Distributed authentication in a protocol-based sphere of trust in which a given external connection outside the sphere of trust may carry communications from multiple sources

摘要

The method involves accessing a list of internal computing systems that one internal computing system trusts to authenticate external computing systems. An identity of an originating external computing system is validated by determining that another internal computing system or one of the internal computing systems in a trusted chain, is on the list, without the internal system separately authenticating the external systems. An independent claim is also included for a computer program product for implementing a method for an internal computing system validating the identity of an originating external computing system.