Towards a Formal Verification of the Trusted Platform Module

The Trusted Platform Module (TPM) serves as the root-of-trust in a trusted computing environment, and therefore warrants formal specification and verification. This thesis presents results of an effort to specify and verify an abstract TPM 1.2 model using PVS that is useful for understanding the TPM and verifying protocols that use it. TPM commands are specified as state transformations and sequenced to represent protocols using a state monad. Preconditions, postconditions, and invariants are specified for individual commands and validated. All specifications are written and verified automatically using the PVS decision procedures and rewriting system

Remote Attestation Mechanism for User Centric Smart Cards using Pseudorandom Number Generators

Abstract. User Centric Smart Card Ownership Model (UCOM) gives the freedom of choice of respective applications to the smart card users. The user-centric architecture requires a trusted entity to be present on the smart card to provide security assurance and validation to the requesting application providers. In this paper, we propose the inclusion of a trusted computing platform for smart cards that we refer as the Trusted Environment & Execution Manager (TEM). This is followed by the rationale behind the changes to the traditional smart card architecture to accommodate the remote security assurance and validation mechanism. We propose an attestation protocol that provides an on-demand security validation of a smart card by its respective manufacturer. Finally, the attestation protocol is informally analysed, and its test implementation and performance measurements are presented

TCG based approach for secure management of virtualized platforms: state-of-the-art

There is a strong trend shift in the favor of adopting virtualization to get business benefits. The provisioning of virtualized enterprise resources is one kind of many possible scenarios. Where virtualization promises clear advantages it also poses new security challenges which need to be addressed to gain stakeholders confidence in the dynamics of new environment. One important facet of these challenges is establishing 'Trust' which is a basic primitive for any viable business model. The Trusted computing group (TCG) offers technologies and mechanisms required to establish this trust in the target platforms. Moreover, TCG technologies enable protecting of sensitive data in rest and transit. This report explores the applicability of relevant TCG concepts to virtualize enterprise resources securely for provisioning, establish trust in the target platforms and securely manage these virtualized Trusted Platforms

Deploying Virtual Machines on Shared Platforms

In this report, we describe mechanisms for secure deployment of virtual machines on shared platforms looking into a telecommunication cloud use case, which is also presented in this report. The architecture we present focuses on the security requirements of the major stakeholders’ part of the scenario we present. This report comprehensively covers all major security aspects including different security mechanisms and protocols, leveraging existing standards and state-of-the art wherever applicable. In particular, our architecture uses TCG technologies for trust establishment in the deployment of operator virtual machines on shared resource platforms. We also propose a novel procedure for securely launching and cryptographically binding a virtual machine to a target platform thereby protecting the operator virtual machine and its related credentials

Trusted Launch of Virtual Machine Instances in Public IaaS Environments

Cloud computing and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) are emerging and promising technologies, however their adoption is hampered by data security concerns. At the same time, Trusted Computing (TC) is experiencing an increasing interest as a security mechanism for IaaS. In this paper we present a protocol to ensure the launch of a virtual machine (VM) instance on a trusted remote compute host. Relying on Trusted Platform Module operations such as binding and sealing to provide integrity guarantees for clients that require a trusted VM launch, we have designed a trusted launch protocol for VM instances in public IaaS environments. We also present a proof-of-concept implementation of the protocol based on OpenStack, an open-source IaaS platform. The results provide a basis for the use of TC mechanisms within IaaS platforms and pave the way for a wider applicability of TC to IaaS security

myTrustedCloud: Trusted cloud infrastructure for security-critical computation and data managment

Copyright @ 2012 IEEECloud Computing provides an optimal infrastructure to utilise and share both computational and data resources whilst allowing a pay-per-use model, useful to cost-effectively manage hardware investment or to maximise its utilisation. Cloud Computing also offers transitory access to scalable amounts of computational resources, something that is particularly important due to the time and financial constraints of many user communities. The growing number of communities that are adopting large public cloud resources such as Amazon Web Services [1] or Microsoft Azure [2] proves the success and hence usefulness of the Cloud Computing paradigm. Nonetheless, the typical use cases for public clouds involve non-business critical applications, particularly where issues around security of utilization of applications or deposited data within shared public services are binding requisites. In this paper, a use case is presented illustrating how the integration of Trusted Computing technologies into an available cloud infrastructure - Eucalyptus - allows the security-critical energy industry to exploit the flexibility and potential economical benefits of the Cloud Computing paradigm for their business-critical applications

Securely Launching Virtual Machines on Trustworthy Platforms in a Public Cloud

In this paper we consider the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud model which allows cloud users to run their own virtual machines (VMs) on available cloud computing resources. IaaS gives enterprises the possibility to outsource their process workloads with minimal effort and expense. However, one major problem with existing approaches of cloud leasing, is that the users can only get contractual guarantees regarding the integrity of the offered platforms. The fact that the IaaS user himself or herself cannot verify the provider promised cloud platform integrity, is a security risk which threatens to prevent the IaaS business in general. In this paper we address this issue and propose a novel secure VM launch protocol using Trusted Computing techniques. This protocol allows the cloud IaaS users to securely bind the VM to a trusted computer configuration such that the clear text VM only will run on a platform that has been booted into a trustworthy state. This capability builds user confidence and can serve as an important enabler for creating trust in public clouds. We evaluate the feasibility of our proposed protocol via a full scale system implementation and perform a system security analysis