Patent attributes
Disclosed is a computerized apparatus and method for version control and management. The apparatus includes a cryptography boot loader, a control module on key usage, and one or more agents. After the user's device is powered on, the cryptography boot loader stores a user key, and checks an operating system (OS) certificate for an OS and an application certificate for an application to determine whether these certificates are valid. Then, a right object is obtained with a user certificate through an agent. The control module on key usage compares the OS version and the application version with the version required by the right object. The permission access to the user key is determined by the comparison result. This invention associates the cryptography component with the boot loader to develop a security mechanism performed by OS and application for using a secret key.