In an embodiment of the invention an application provider may include “tracing elements” in a target software application. While working with the application the trace elements are detected and provide a “baseline trace” indicating proper application execution. The provider then supplies the application, which still includes the trace elements, and the baseline trace to a user. The user operates the application to produce a “real-time trace” based on the application still having trace elements that produce trace events. A comparator then compares the baseline and real-time traces. If the traces are within a pre-determined range of each other the user has a level of assurance the software is operating correctly. If the level of assurance is low, an embodiment may trigger a hardware interrupt or similar event to prevent further execution of software. Other embodiments are described herein.