Systems and methods for developing a novel public/private key pair having unique properties are disclosed, whereby standard data security operations in existing data security infrastructures return a data integrity validation result—but do not provide the intended data security of such infrastructures. These novel keys are referred to as degenerate keys and may be used to replace the public and private keys in existing public/private key cryptosystems. Because degenerate key data integrity validation may leverage existing data security infrastructures that are already widely-implemented, such examples may be applied immediately and configured to seamlessly transition from integrity only modes back to secure modes. In some instances, the degenerate key examples described herein may be employed during a software testing and/or factory validation stage of product development to allow for data integrity validation before burning in a developer's active (i.e., non-degenerate) key to the product, thereby pairing the software to the hardware.