Security and trust in cloud computing and IoT through applying obfuscation, diversification, and trusted computing technologies

Cloud computing and Internet of Things (IoT) are very widely spread and commonly used technologies nowadays. The advanced services offered by cloud computing have made it a highly demanded technology. Enterprises and businesses are more and more relying on the cloud to deliver services to their customers. The prevalent use of cloud means that more data is stored outside the organization’s premises, which raises concerns about the security and privacy of the stored and processed data. This highlights the significance of effective security practices to secure the cloud infrastructure. The number of IoT devices is growing rapidly and the technology is being employed in a wide range of sectors including smart healthcare, industry automation, and smart environments. These devices collect and exchange a great deal of information, some of which may contain critical and personal data of the users of the device. Hence, it is highly significant to protect the collected and shared data over the network; notwithstanding, the studies signify that attacks on these devices are increasing, while a high percentage of IoT devices lack proper security measures to protect the devices, the data, and the privacy of the users. In this dissertation, we study the security of cloud computing and IoT and propose software-based security approaches supported by the hardware-based technologies to provide robust measures for enhancing the security of these environments. To achieve this goal, we use obfuscation and diversification as the potential software security techniques. Code obfuscation protects the software from malicious reverse engineering and diversification mitigates the risk of large-scale exploits. We study trusted computing and Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) as the hardware-based security solutions. Trusted Platform Module (TPM) provides security and trust through a hardware root of trust, and assures the integrity of a platform. We also study Intel SGX which is a TEE solution that guarantees the integrity and confidentiality of the code and data loaded onto its protected container, enclave. More precisely, through obfuscation and diversification of the operating systems and APIs of the IoT devices, we secure them at the application level, and by obfuscation and diversification of the communication protocols, we protect the communication of data between them at the network level. For securing the cloud computing, we employ obfuscation and diversification techniques for securing the cloud computing software at the client-side. For an enhanced level of security, we employ hardware-based security solutions, TPM and SGX. These solutions, in addition to security, ensure layered trust in various layers from hardware to the application. As the result of this PhD research, this dissertation addresses a number of security risks targeting IoT and cloud computing through the delivered publications and presents a brief outlook on the future research directions.Pilvilaskenta ja esineiden internet ovat nykyään hyvin tavallisia ja laajasti sovellettuja tekniikkoja. Pilvilaskennan pitkälle kehittyneet palvelut ovat tehneet siitä hyvin kysytyn teknologian. Yritykset enenevässä määrin nojaavat pilviteknologiaan toteuttaessaan palveluita asiakkailleen. Vallitsevassa pilviteknologian soveltamistilanteessa yritykset ulkoistavat tietojensa käsittelyä yrityksen ulkopuolelle, minkä voidaan nähdä nostavan esiin huolia taltioitavan ja käsiteltävän tiedon turvallisuudesta ja yksityisyydestä. Tämä korostaa tehokkaiden turvallisuusratkaisujen merkitystä osana pilvi-infrastruktuurin turvaamista. Esineiden internet -laitteiden lukumäärä on nopeasti kasvanut. Teknologiana sitä sovelletaan laajasti monilla sektoreilla, kuten älykkäässä terveydenhuollossa, teollisuusautomaatiossa ja älytiloissa. Sellaiset laitteet keräävät ja välittävät suuria määriä informaatiota, joka voi sisältää laitteiden käyttäjien kannalta kriittistä ja yksityistä tietoa. Tästä syystä johtuen on erittäin merkityksellistä suojata verkon yli kerättävää ja jaettavaa tietoa. Monet tutkimukset osoittavat esineiden internet -laitteisiin kohdistuvien tietoturvahyökkäysten määrän olevan nousussa, ja samaan aikaan suuri osuus näistä laitteista ei omaa kunnollisia teknisiä ominaisuuksia itse laitteiden tai niiden käyttäjien yksityisen tiedon suojaamiseksi. Tässä väitöskirjassa tutkitaan pilvilaskennan sekä esineiden internetin tietoturvaa ja esitetään ohjelmistopohjaisia tietoturvalähestymistapoja turvautumalla osittain laitteistopohjaisiin teknologioihin. Esitetyt lähestymistavat tarjoavat vankkoja keinoja tietoturvallisuuden kohentamiseksi näissä konteksteissa. Tämän saavuttamiseksi työssä sovelletaan obfuskaatiota ja diversifiointia potentiaalisiana ohjelmistopohjaisina tietoturvatekniikkoina. Suoritettavan koodin obfuskointi suojaa pahantahtoiselta ohjelmiston takaisinmallinnukselta ja diversifiointi torjuu tietoturva-aukkojen laaja-alaisen hyödyntämisen riskiä. Väitöskirjatyössä tutkitaan luotettua laskentaa ja luotettavan laskennan suoritusalustoja laitteistopohjaisina tietoturvaratkaisuina. TPM (Trusted Platform Module) tarjoaa turvallisuutta ja luottamuksellisuutta rakentuen laitteistopohjaiseen luottamukseen. Pyrkimyksenä on taata suoritusalustan eheys. Työssä tutkitaan myös Intel SGX:ää yhtenä luotettavan suorituksen suoritusalustana, joka takaa suoritettavan koodin ja datan eheyden sekä luottamuksellisuuden pohjautuen suojatun säiliön, saarekkeen, tekniseen toteutukseen. Tarkemmin ilmaistuna työssä turvataan käyttöjärjestelmä- ja sovellusrajapintatasojen obfuskaation ja diversifioinnin kautta esineiden internet -laitteiden ohjelmistokerrosta. Soveltamalla samoja tekniikoita protokollakerrokseen, työssä suojataan laitteiden välistä tiedonvaihtoa verkkotasolla. Pilvilaskennan turvaamiseksi työssä sovelletaan obfuskaatio ja diversifiointitekniikoita asiakaspuolen ohjelmistoratkaisuihin. Vankemman tietoturvallisuuden saavuttamiseksi työssä hyödynnetään laitteistopohjaisia TPM- ja SGX-ratkaisuja. Tietoturvallisuuden lisäksi nämä ratkaisut tarjoavat monikerroksisen luottamuksen rakentuen laitteistotasolta ohjelmistokerrokseen asti. Tämän väitöskirjatutkimustyön tuloksena, osajulkaisuiden kautta, vastataan moniin esineiden internet -laitteisiin ja pilvilaskentaan kohdistuviin tietoturvauhkiin. Työssä esitetään myös näkemyksiä jatkotutkimusaiheista

Towards a Trustworthy Thin Terminal for Securing Enterprise Networks

Organizations have many employees that lack the technical knowledge to securely operate their machines. These users may open malicious email attachments/links or install unverified software such as P2P programs. These actions introduce significant risk to an organization\u27s network since they allow attackers to exploit the trust and access given to a client machine. However, system administrators currently lack the control of client machines needed to prevent these security risks. A possible solution to address this issue lies in attestation. With respect to computer science, attestation is the ability of a machine to prove its current state. This capability can be used by client machines to remotely attest to their state, which can be used by other machines in the network when making trust decisions. Previous research in this area has focused on the use of a static root of trust (RoT), requiring the use of a chain of trust over the entire software stack. We would argue this approach is limited in feasibility, because it requires an understanding and evaluation of the all the previous states of a machine. With the use of late launch, a dynamic root of trust introduced in the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) v1.2 specification, the required chain of trust is drastically shortened, minimizing the previous states of a machine that must be evaluated. This reduced chain of trust may allow a dynamic RoT to address the limitations of a static RoT. We are implementing a client terminal service that utilizes late launch to attest to its execution. Further, the minimal functional requirements of the service facilitate strong software verification. The goal in designing this service is not to increase the security of the network, but rather to push the functionality, and therefore the security risks and responsibilities, of client machines to the network€™s servers. In doing so, we create a platform that can more easily be administered by those individuals best equipped to do so with the expectation that this will lead to better security practices. Through the use of late launch and remote attestation in our terminal service, the system administrators have a strong guarantee the clients connecting to their system are secure and can therefore focus their efforts on securing the server architecture. This effectively addresses our motivating problem as it forces user actions to occur under the control of system administrators

Performance Implications For the Use of Virtual Machines Versus Shielded Virtual Machines in High-Availability Virtualized Infrastructures

Use of virtualization in datacenter or service providers or even in cloud computing environments brings many benefits. Virtualization, whether it is for services, applications or servers, is no longer a trend to be a reality in many industries and areas, whether in or outside the technology area. Therefore, with this emergent use of virtualization companies have been asking a lot about the performance and security of using virtual machines in a highly availability infrastructures. Controlling the access to Virtual Machines is a security issues that all the hypervisors haves, such as, VMware vSphere, Hyper-V or KVM. To make virtual machines more secure Microsoft has introduced the concept of Shielded virtual machines. Taking this into account, this dissertation presents a study on key concepts behind virtual machines, Guarded Fabric, Host Guardian Service, Guarded Hosts and shielded virtual machines. A Shielded VM is a Generation 2 feature (supported on Windows Server 2012 and later) that comes with a virtual Trusted Platform Module (TPM), which can only run on healthy and approved hosts in the fabric and is encrypted using BitLocker. In order to support our study an experimental bed test has been setup, involving a failover cluster with native virtualization at the hardware level with Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V. In the test environment, a failover clustering, FreeNAS Storage, ISCSI Target, VMs, Guarded Fabric and Shielded virtual machines have been implemented and configured. After the implementation of the bed test, a set of tests and experiments haves been made in order to study the performance implications for the use of virtual machines versus shielded virtual machine in High Availability Virtualized Infrastructures. Finally, an analysis at the results worked through the tests has been made, according to the Background made in the first part and the bed test deployed. A set of experiments has been made in virtual machines and shielded virtual machines in order to evaluate its performance in terms of CPU, RAM and writing speed. The results show that the use of shielded virtual machines leads to a small degradation of performance compared to the use of regular virtual machines, but, on the other hand, it has also been shown that the shielded virtual machines allows to restrict access to the virtual machines only for run on trusted hosts, and prevent unauthorized administrators and malwares from compromising the virtual machine.O uso da virtualização em centro de dados ou provedores de serviços ou mesmo em ambientes de computação em nuvem traz muitos benefícios. A virtualização, seja para serviços, aplicações ou servidores, não é mais uma tendência a ser uma realidade em muitos setores e áreas, seja dentro ou fora da área de tecnologia. Portanto, com esse uso emergente de virtualização, as empresas têm vindo a questionar muito sobre o desempenho e a segurança do uso de máquinas virtuais em infraestruturas de alta disponibilidade. Controlar o acesso às máquinas virtuais é um problema de segurança que todos os hypervisors possuem, como VmWare vSphere, Hyper-V ou KVM. Para tornar as máquinas virtuais mais seguras, a Microsoft introduziu as máquinas virtuais blindadas. Neste sentido, esta dissertação apresenta um estudo sobre conceitos-chave por trás de máquinas virtuais, Guarded Fabric, Host Guardian Service, Guarded Hosts e máquinas virtuais Blindadas. Uma Máquina Virtual Blindada é um recurso da Geração 2 (com suporte no Windows Server 2012 e posterior) que vem com um Trusted Platform Module (TPM) virtual, e que apenas pode ser executada em hospedeiros protegidos e aprovados na fabric e é criptografada usando o BitLocker. Para dar suporte ao nosso estudo foi configurado um ambiente de teste experimental, envolvendo um failover cluster com virtualização nativa ao nível de hardware com o Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V. No ambiente de teste, foi implementado e configurado um failover cluster, FreeNAS Storage, iSCSI Target, Máquinas Virtuais, Guarded Fabric e Máquinas Virtuais Blindadas. Após a implementação do ambiente de teste, um conjunto de testes e experiências foram realizados para estudar as implicações dos desempenhos das máquinas virtuais versus máquinas virtuais Blindadas em Infraestruturas Virtualizadas de Alta Disponibilidade. Por fim, fizemos a análise nos resultados trabalhados através dos testes, de acordo com os conceitos definidos no segundo capítulo da dissertação e com o ambiente de teste implementado. Um conjunto de experiencias foram realizadas em máquinas virtuais regulares e máquinas virtuais blindadas para avaliar o desempenho em termos de CPU, RAM e velocidade de escrita no disco. Os resultados mostram que o uso de máquinas virtuais blindadas conduz a uma pequena degradação do desempenho em comparação com o uso de máquinas virtuais regulares, mas, por outro lado, também se verificou que as máquinas virtuais blindadas permitem restringir o acesso às máquinas virtuais apenas para correrem em hosts confiáveis, além de impedirem que administradores não autorizados e malwares comprometam a máquina virtual

Building the Infrastructure for Cloud Security

Computer scienc

Intel TDX Demystified: A Top-Down Approach

Intel Trust Domain Extensions (TDX) is a new architectural extension in the 4th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable Processor that supports confidential computing. TDX allows the deployment of virtual machines in the Secure-Arbitration Mode (SEAM) with encrypted CPU state and memory, integrity protection, and remote attestation. TDX aims to enforce hardware-assisted isolation for virtual machines and minimize the attack surface exposed to host platforms, which are considered to be untrustworthy or adversarial in the confidential computing's new threat model. TDX can be leveraged by regulated industries or sensitive data holders to outsource their computations and data with end-to-end protection in public cloud infrastructure. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of TDX to potential adopters, domain experts, and security researchers looking to leverage the technology for their own purposes. We adopt a top-down approach, starting with high-level security principles and moving to low-level technical details of TDX. Our analysis is based on publicly available documentation and source code, offering insights from security researchers outside of Intel

Improving trust in cloud, enterprise, and mobile computing platforms

Trust plays a fundamental role in the adoption of technology by society. Potential consumers tend to avoid a particular technology whenever they feel suspicious about its ability to cope with their security demands. Such a loss of trust could occur in important computing platforms, namely cloud, enterprise, and mobile platforms. In this thesis, we aim to improve trust in these platforms by (i) enhancing their security mechanisms, and (ii) giving their users guarantees that these mechanisms are in place. To realize both these goals, we propose several novel systems. For cloud platforms, we present Excalibur, a system that enables building trusted cloud services. Such services give cloud customers the ability to process data privately in the cloud, and to attest that the respective data protection mechanisms are deployed. Attestation is made possible by the use of trusted computing hardware placed on the cloud nodes. For enterprise platforms, we propose an OS security model—the broker security model—aimed at providing information security against a negligent or malicious system administrator while letting him retain most of the flexibility to manage the OS. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this model by building BrokULOS, a proof-of-concept instantiation of this model for Linux. For mobile platforms, we present the Trusted Language Runtime (TLR), a software system for hosting mobile apps with stringent security needs (e.g., e-wallet). The TLR leverages ARM TrustZone technology to protect mobile apps from OS security breaches.Für die gesellschaftliche Akzeptanz von Technologie spielt Vertrauen eine entscheidende Rolle. Wichtige Rechnerplattformen erfüllen diesbezüglich die Anforderungen ihrer Nutzer jedoch nicht zufriedenstellend. Dies trifft insbesondere auf Cloud-, Unternehmens- und Mobilplattformen zu. In dieser Arbeit setzen wir uns zum Ziel, das Vertrauen in diese Plattformen zu stärken, indem wir (1) ihre Sicherheitsmechanismen verbessern sowie (2) garantieren, dass diese Sicherheitsmechanismen aktiv sind. Zu diesem Zweck schlagen wir mehrere neuartige Systeme vor. Für Cloud-Plattformen präsentieren wir Excalibur, welches das Erstellen von vertrauenswürdigen Cloud-Diensten ermöglicht. Diese Cloud-Dienste erlauben es den Benutzern, ihre Daten in der Cloud vertraulich zu verarbeiten und sich darüber hinaus den Einsatz entsprechender Schutzvorkehrungen bescheinigen zu lassen. Eine solche Attestierung geschieht mit Hilfe von Trusted Computing Hardware auf den Cloud-Servern. Für Unternehmensplattformen stellen wir ein Sicherheitsmodell auf Betriebssystemebene vor—das Broker Security Model. Es zielt darauf ab, Informationssicherheit trotz fahrlässigem oder böswilligem Systemadministrator zu gewährleisten, ohne diesen bei seinen Administrationsaufgaben stark einzuschränken. Wir demonstrieren die Leistungsfähigkeit dieses Modells mit BrokULOS, einer Prototypimplementierung für Linux. Für Mobilplattformen stellen wir die Trusted Language Runtime (TLR) vor, ein Softwaresystem zum Hosting von mobilen Anwendungen mit strikten Sicherheitsanforderungen (z.B. elektronische Bezahlfunktionen). TLR nutzt die ARM TrustZone-Technologie um mobile Anwendungen vor Sicherheitslücken im Betriebssystem selbst zu schützen

Live migration of user environments across wide area networks

A complex challenge in mobile computing is to allow the user to migrate her highly customised environment while moving to a different location and to continue work without interruption. I motivate why this is a highly desirable capability and conduct a survey of the current approaches towards this goal and explain their limitations. I then propose a new architecture to support user mobility by live migration of a user’s operating system instance over the network. Previous work includes the Collective and Internet Suspend/Resume projects that have addressed migration of a user’s environment by suspending the running state and resuming it at a later time. In contrast to previous work, this work addresses live migration of a user’s operating system instance across wide area links. Live migration is done by performing most of the migration while the operating system is still running, achieving very little downtime and preserving all network connectivity. I developed an initial proof of concept of this solution. It relies on migrating whole operating systems using the Xen virtual machine and provides a way to perform live migration of persistent storage as well as the network connections across subnets. These challenges have not been addressed previously in this scenario. In a virtual machine environment, persistent storage is provided by virtual block devices. The architecture supports decentralized virtual block device replication across wide area network links, as well as migrating network connection across subnetworks using the Host Identity Protocol. The proposed architecture is compared against existing solutions and an initial performance evaluation of the prototype implementation is presented, showing that such a solution is a promising step towards true seamless mobility of fully fledged computing environments

Investigation into the impacts of migration to emergent NSA Suite B encryption standards

As information sharing becomes increasingly necessary for mission accomplishment within the Department of Defense, the rules for protecting information have tightened. The sustained and rapid advancement of information technology in the 21st century dictates the adoption of a flexible and adaptable cryptographic strategy for protecting national security information. RSA techniques, while formidable, have begun to present vulnerabilities to the raw computing power that is commercially available today. This thesis is a comprehensive characterization of the current state of the art in DoD encryption standards. It will emphasize the mathematical algorithms that facilitate legacy encryption and its proposed NSA Suite B replacements. We will look at how the new technology addresses the latest threats and vulnerabilities that legacy methods do not fully mitigate. It will then summarize the findings of the security capabilities of NSA Suite B standards as compared to the costs in manpower and money to implement them, and suggest how to best utilize NSA Suite B technology for the purpose of providing confidentiality, integrity and availability in an environment with real world threats.http://archive.org/details/investigationint109454675Department of Defense author (civilian).Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Hardening High-Assurance Security Systems with Trusted Computing

We are living in the time of the digital revolution in which the world we know changes beyond recognition every decade. The positive aspect is that these changes also drive the progress in quality and availability of digital assets crucial for our societies. To name a few examples, these are broadly available communication channels allowing quick exchange of knowledge over long distances, systems controlling automatic share and distribution of renewable energy in international power grid networks, easily accessible applications for early disease detection enabling self-examination without burdening the health service, or governmental systems assisting citizens to settle official matters without leaving their homes. Unfortunately, however, digitalization also opens opportunities for malicious actors to threaten our societies if they gain control over these assets after successfully exploiting vulnerabilities in the complex computing systems building them. Protecting these systems, which are called high-assurance security systems, is therefore of utmost importance. For decades, humanity has struggled to find methods to protect high-assurance security systems. The advancements in the computing systems security domain led to the popularization of hardware-assisted security techniques, nowadays available in commodity computers, that opened perspectives for building more sophisticated defense mechanisms at lower costs. However, none of these techniques is a silver bullet. Each one targets particular use cases, suffers from limitations, and is vulnerable to specific attacks. I argue that some of these techniques are synergistic and help overcome limitations and mitigate specific attacks when used together. My reasoning is supported by regulations that legally bind high-assurance security systems' owners to provide strong security guarantees. These requirements can be fulfilled with the help of diverse technologies that have been standardized in the last years. In this thesis, I introduce new techniques for hardening high-assurance security systems that execute in remote execution environments, such as public and hybrid clouds. I implemented these techniques as part of a framework that provides technical assurance that high-assurance security systems execute in a specific data center, on top of a trustworthy operating system, in a virtual machine controlled by a trustworthy hypervisor or in strong isolation from other software. I demonstrated the practicality of my approach by leveraging the framework to harden real-world applications, such as machine learning applications in the eHealth domain. The evaluation shows that the framework is practical. It induces low performance overhead (<6%), supports software updates, requires no changes to the legacy application's source code, and can be tailored to individual trust boundaries with the help of security policies. The framework consists of a decentralized monitoring system that offers better scalability than traditional centralized monitoring systems. Each monitored machine runs a piece of code that verifies that the machine's integrity and geolocation conform to the given security policy. This piece of code, which serves as a trusted anchor on that machine, executes inside the trusted execution environment, i.e., Intel SGX, to protect itself from the untrusted host, and uses trusted computing techniques, such as trusted platform module, secure boot, and integrity measurement architecture, to attest to the load-time and runtime integrity of the surrounding operating system running on a bare metal machine or inside a virtual machine. The trusted anchor implements my novel, formally proven protocol, enabling detection of the TPM cuckoo attack. The framework also implements a key distribution protocol that, depending on the individual security requirements, shares cryptographic keys only with high-assurance security systems executing in the predefined security settings, i.e., inside the trusted execution environments or inside the integrity-enforced operating system. Such an approach is particularly appealing in the context of machine learning systems where some algorithms, like the machine learning model training, require temporal access to large computing power. These algorithms can execute inside a dedicated, trusted data center at higher performance because they are not limited by security features required in the shared execution environment. The evaluation of the framework showed that training of a machine learning model using real-world datasets achieved 0.96x native performance execution on the GPU and a speedup of up to 1560x compared to the state-of-the-art SGX-based system. Finally, I tackled the problem of software updates, which makes the operating system's integrity monitoring unreliable due to false positives, i.e., software updates move the updated system to an unknown (untrusted) state that is reported as an integrity violation. I solved this problem by introducing a proxy to a software repository that sanitizes software packages so that they can be safely installed. The sanitization consists of predicting and certifying the future (after the specific updates are installed) operating system's state. The evaluation of this approach showed that it supports 99.76% of the packages available in Alpine Linux main and community repositories. The framework proposed in this thesis is a step forward in verifying and enforcing that high-assurance security systems execute in an environment compliant with regulations. I anticipate that the framework might be further integrated with industry-standard security information and event management tools as well as other security monitoring mechanisms to provide a comprehensive solution hardening high-assurance security systems