Abstract: In one embodiment, a system wake-up vector points to a native OS wake-up routine. As the native OS awakens from sleep it passes the wake-up message to the appropriate device drivers. A hardware device whose security context to be restored hooks the appropriate driver in order to intercept and handle the wake-up message. In a second embodiment, a system wake-up vector is redirected to a device specific S3 wake-up subroutine that handles a resume from S3 prior to allowing the call of the native OS wake-up vector. This S3 wake-up subroutine challenges a user for authentication credentials or retrieves them from a hardware device. The supplied credentials are used directly or to decrypt an unlock key from an encrypted key in memory. The unlock key would then be used to unlock the hardware device or fed to the native OS for processing by a device driver capable of unlocking the hardware device.