1. A method comprising: transmitting to a guest operating system of a first virtual machine, by a hypervisor executed by a processing device, a message that identifies a memory location for storing secure data; receiving by the hypervisor, after the transmitting of the message, a direct-copy command to clone the first virtual machine; and in response to the direct-copy command, creating, by the hypervisor, a second virtual machine via direct copy of the first virtual machine, wherein the second virtual machine is not provided access to the memory location during the creating of the second virtual machine.