An client hosted virtualization system includes an authentication device, a processor and non-volatile memory with BIOS code and virtualization manager code. The virtualization manager initializes the client hosted virtualization system authenticates a virtual machine image, launches a portion of the virtual machine that initiates an authentication session with the authentication device, receives an authentication object from the authentication device, sends the authentication object to the portion of the virtual machine, and launches another portion of the virtual machine. The client hosted virtualization system is configurable to execute the BIOS or the virtualization manager.