Systems and methods for verifying the integrity of a software installation image before installing the software. Security of the software installation process is ensured by providing access to the software image from a security monitor using security policies. An installation system for protecting the installation of a software image includes instructions that, when executing on computing hardware, cause the computing hardware to implement: a verifier engine to verify the integrity of the software image, a security monitor engine to set an initial access state for the software image granting access to the verifier engine and to update the access state for the software image in accordance with at least one security policy, and an installer engine to install software contained in the software image according to the access state.