1. A method for performing real-time integrity assessment of execution of a routine in a computer processing platform, comprising: monitoring execution of the routine by tracing power consumption of a processor by sampling during execution of the routine; using a platform characterization technique that further comprises detecting sections of the traces that display the largest dependence on state transitions in the processor; using said sections to select features carrying the most information; obtaining from a characterization of selected features of the routine contained in said sections a set of trusted power fingerprints of the routine; establishing a threshold for a specific false alarm rate based on the probability distribution of distance from a signature comprised of said trusted fingerprints; comparing a library of said trusted fingerprints to features extracted from traces from the execution of untrusted code determining a distance between said fingerprints and the extracted features; and reporting an exception if the distance exceeds the threshold.