Described are various embodiments of a secure cloud-based system. In one such embodiment, the secure cloud-based system includes a distribution of digital network processing resources and a central digital processing environment. The central processing environment includes a secure network interface to each of said digital processing resources; a digital hardware processor; and a deployment engine operable to serially deploy a unique ephemeral machine executable code instance, via said secure network interface, to a given one of said digital processing resources to be executed thereon for a predetermined runtime period, wherein execution of each said unique ephemeral machine executable code instance is automatically terminated after said predetermined runtime period to be operatively replaced by a subsequent unique ephemeral machine executable code instance.