1. A method of securing a data communication network that has computer systems, the method comprising: processing virtual network elements comprising software virtual machines in the computer systems during network processing time cycles to forward data communication packets for user data services; processing hardware-embedded identification codes in the computer systems during the network processing time cycles to identify computer system identities of the computer systems; validating the computer system identities for the virtual network elements by comparing the hardware-embedded identification codes to an authorized computer system list to determine computer system validities; and maintaining a distributed data structure that individually associates the data services, the computer systems, the virtual network elements, and the computer system validities.