trusted execution technology
trusted execution technology. in: intel® trusted execution technology for server platforms. apress, berkeley, ca
is execute bit and intel® trusted execution technology (intel® txt) basically the same thing? i mean to ask if intel® trusted execution technology (intel® txt) is some kind of advance version of execute bit technology .
security researchers joanna rutkowska and colleague rafal wojtczuk, discovered new intel bugs that would allow attackers to bypass intel trusted execution technology .
intel® trusted execution technology server platform availability matrix - this list will help you to determine which platforms and operating environments support intel txt .
arm security technology building a secure system using trustzone technology: 5. 2. 2. secure boot
bill attack on the xen hypervisor, two researchers have demonstrated how to bypass the chip - maker giant' s trusted execution technology (txt), a core security around its vpro technology .
formerly known as lagrande technology, trusted execution technology is a set of hardware extensions on intel processors and chipsets. it ensures that all aspects of the computer run in a
trusted
space, by cryptographically verifying the authenticity of all hardware and operating system software .
trusted execution technology
is much more than just a cpu feature, it has to be integrated into the chipset and bios as well. see the documents available at: urltoken
intel trusted execution technology (intel txt) is the name of a computer hardware technology whose primary goals are (a) attestation – attest to the authenticity of a platform and its operating system (os); (b) assure that an authentic os starts in a trusted environment and thus can be considered a trusted os; (c) provide the trusted os with additional security capabilities not available to an unproven os .
this book explains intel trusted execution technology for servers, its purpose, application, advantages, and limitations and guides the server administrator / datacenter manager in enabling the technology as well as establishing a launch control policy that can be used to customize the server’s boot process to fit the datacenter’s requirements .
trusted boot (tboot) is an open source, pre - kernel / vmm module that uses intel (r) trusted execution technology (intel (r) txt) to perform a measured and verified launch of an os kernel / vmm. mercurial repo: urltoken .
intel® trusted execution technology (intel txt) is a new security technology that started appearing on intel server platforms in 2010. this book explains intel trusted execution technology for servers, its purpose, application, advantages, and limitations. this book guides the server administrator / datacenter manager in enabling the technology as well as establishing a launch control policy that he can use to customize the server’s boot process to fit the datacenter’s requirements. this book explains how the os (typically a virtual machine monitor or hypervisor) and supporting software can build on the secure facilities afforded by intel txt to provide additional security features and functions. it provides examples how the datacenter can create and use trusted pools .
the answer is a higher level of security, better ability to mitigate attacks, and the means to prove those capabilities are enforced. intel trusted execution technology (or intel txt) can now be a significant part of that solution .
the steps defined in this section can be used to set up intel txt functionality on a supported system, as defined in the “hardware and software prerequisites” section of this document and the intel® trusted execution technology server platform availability matrix [ 5 ] .
arm trustzone technology provides system - wide hardware isolation for trusted software. the family of trustzone technologies can be integrated into any arm cortex - a core, supporting high - performance applications processors, with trustzone technology for cortex - a processors .
globalplatform is a standards - defining organisation that provides software apis, compliance and certification schemes for the trusted execution environment (tee). the work is done in the device committee with the aim of creating trusted chip technology that can be used to provide confidentiality and integrity to trusted code and data. the tee consists of three parts: hardware - based isolation technology (such as arm trustzone), trusted boot and a small trusted os. the tee can be used to run multiple isolated trusted apps which may be provisioned over the air. compared to other security technologies the tee provides higher performance and access to larger amounts of memory .
figure 5 illustrates, at a high level, potential interactions between different management solutions and a trusted system or trusted vm .
note: to choose server platforms, operating environments, and hypervisors that support intel txt, please refer to the intel® trusted execution technology server platform availability matrix. [ 1 ] this document assumes the presence of supported hardware and software components, as defined in that matrix .
the escalation and sophistication of malicious threats has organizations employing more stringent security requirements and scrutinizing every aspect of their execution environment. organizations are looking to their cloud providers to offer hardware monitoring and security controls that can determine if a workload is running on trusted hardware in a known location. softlayer’s leading the way by enabling customers to deploy hybrid and cloud environments with enhanced security verification of their launch environment using intel® trusted execution technology (intel® txt) .
tsp delivers kinibi®, a trusted execution environment (tee), which is a hardware - isolated environment, running within the main processor on a device. it is a secure operating system which enables trusted applications (tas) to run on it .
membership in the trusted computing group is your key to participating with fellow industry stakeholders in the quest to develop and promote trusted computing technologies .
a grc platform combined with trusted compute pools can enable auditing information on a trusted platform or a trusted compute pool. this capability can help provide real - time or historical metrics, verifying that platforms are trusted as expected and that workload controls for trust and location are enforced .
i see that intel has listed
trusted execution technology
as a feature for its core i7 - 860 and - 870 processors... but not for the other core i7 processors and not for the core i5 processor either. judging from intel' s marketing department - -
... helps protect against malware attacks by enabling an environment where applications can run within their own space, protected from all other software on the system ...
- - this sounds like it could be a useful feature. so why is trusted execution technology not offered on the rest of core i7 and core i5 ?
getting this error on docker startup ...
hardware assisted virtualization and data execution protection must be enabled in the bios
intel trusted execution technology is available today on selected platforms. the platform availability matrix and the builder guides are for your reference. they are there to help you design and setup your secure environment. if you have other solutions, i would encourage you to share them, so we can learn as a community .
it is beneficial to be able to identify and manage the trusted systems protected by intel txt within your environment. insight into which systems are trusted and which are untrusted can be used to set up trusted lists or trusted pools. those systems that are trusted can be assigned tasks that require higher security; this capability is particularly valuable in virtualized and cloud - based implementations .
actually
trusted execution technology
is available on practically all modern pc cpus, on both amd and intel chips. look if
execute disable bit
is mentioned for the i7 - 860 and - 870' s specs. that' s another term intel' s marketing uses, for something commonly called
nx bit
urltoken
the term trusted computing and related technologies, like palladium, trusted platform module, lagrande, have always caused lots of controversy in the it world. most of the fear, however, has been a result of the lack of understanding of how a particular technology really works .
as the cloud industry evolves, so does the volume, complexity, and sophistication of attacks on it infrastructure. intel ® trusted execution technology (txt) provides hardware - assisted security technologies to build a secure foundation. enable intel txt on your bluemix bare metal servers to enhance your security portfolio and as an additional method to secure your infrastructure .
if the system returns a 1, then the current boot is in trusted mode .
lenovo, asus, and toshiba are known as the first three big computer manufacturers to put that technology into practical use and to bring about greater convenience for their customers. the one question to ask is whether such technology is really safe and secure for its users to enjoy .
to create a trusted environment and enable the management layer within it, certain hardware and software requirements must be met. the following discussion summarizes, at a high level, the components that must be present and properly configured before management can be fully realized for a trusted platform, a trusted vm, or a group of trusted vms. figure 2 illustrates these requirements .
, is intel' s response to the trusted computing trend. txt is currently part of the
trusted os: a host os that has performed a measured launch and passed the datacenter policy .
intuit' s latest ai project - - a digital financial assistant - - could help its customers save money, while breaking new technology ...
intel® trusted execution technology (intel® txt) is a collection of hardware - based security technologies built into intel’s silicon. they address the security threats across physical and virtual infrastructure by complementing runtime protections like anti - virus software. intel txt is also a hardware - based method of verification in compliance efforts such as trusted computing environment. intel txt is designed to harden platforms from the emerging threats of hypervisor attacks, bios, or other firmware attacks, malicious root kit installations, or other software - based attacks .
looks like
trusted execution technology
may not be so trustworthy :
joanna rutkowska of invisible things lab has disclosed a new vulnerability in certain intel processors... [ that ] can interfere with txt (trusted execution technology), allowing it to elevate privileges... the result is a recipe for rootkits running at the most basic, privileged level of the processor. intel has issued an advisory conceding the error and announcing a new sinit acm (authenticated code module) to fix the problem. systems with q35, gm45, pm45 express, q45, and q43 express chipsets are affected. this isn' t the first such flaw in txt found by invisible things lab. a similar, but unrelated attack was disclosed by them and patched by intel in february .
- excerpted from pc magazine' s security watch
the armv8 - m architecture extends arm trustzone technology to arm cortex - m systems such as microcontrollers, enabling robust levels of protection at all cost points .
buffer overflow in intel trusted execution technology (txt) sinit authenticated code modules (acm) in intel q67 express, c202, c204, c206 chipsets, and mobile intel qm67, and qs67 chipset before 2nd _ gen _ i5 _ i7 _ sinit _ 51. bin express; intel q57, 3450 chipsets and mobile intel qm57 and qs57 express chipset before i5 _ i7 _ dual _ sinit _ 51. bin and i7 _ quad _ sinit _ 51. bin; mobile intel gm45, gs45, and pm45 express chipset before gm45 _ gs45 _ pm45 _ sinit _ 51. bin; intel q35 express chipsets before q35 _ sinit _ 51. bin; and intel 5520, 5500, x58, and 7500 chipsets before sinit acm 1. 1 allows local users to bypass the trusted execution technology protection mechanism and perform other unspecified sinit acm functions via unspecified vectors .
trusted computing group announced that its tpm 2. 0 (trusted platform module) library specification was approved as a formal international standard under iso / iec (the international organization for standardization and the international electrotechnical commission). tcg has 90 + specifications and guidance documents to help build a trusted computing environment .
yes, i would like to receive emails from trusted computing group. (you can unsubscribe anytime )
some people are skeptical about the txt technology, and not only because of the irrational fear of the trusted computing (iftc), but rather because they point out to the complexity of the whole technology. the complexity is bad, because 1) it leaves more space for potential attacks, and 2) it discourages developers (isvs) from using the technology in their products (e. g. neither microsoft, nor vmware make use of txt in any of their bare - metal hypervisors, even though txt is very well suited for this kind of software) .
for armv8 - a based application processors arm provides an open source reference implementation of an authenticated trusted boot flow and a secure runtime (bl31). arm trusted firmware is available on github under a permissive bsd licence and can be easily integrated with a commercial or open source trusted os to create a trusted execution environment. included in the runtime is a secure world monitor, interrupt routing and an implementation of power state co - ordination interface (psci) that is used by all major non - secure world operating systems to ease integration between supervisory software from different vendors working at different levels of privilege. there is a port of arm trusted firmware to the juno development platform and it is widely adopted by silicon partners. for more information, please visit the arm trusted firmware project on github .
figure 4. migrating vms among hosts while protecting data, using trusted compute pools enabled by intel txt .
intel® xeon® processor with intel txt - provides simultaneous support for a standard partition, and one or more protected partitions. the standard partition corresponds to the traditional execution environment on pcs that do not support intel txt. the partition allows conventional applications to execute normally without being modified. protected partitions provide hardened access to memory and other system resources, and isolate execution from other processes .
if the system returns vmbtbootenabled = true as a boot option, then the current boot is in trusted mode .
intel ® trusted execution technology (intel ® txt) is a technology that uses enhanced processor architecture, special hardware, and associated firmware that enable certain intel processors to provide the basis for many new innovations in secure computing. it is especially well suited for cloud computing and other uses where data integrity is paramount. its primary goal is to establish an environment that is known to be trusted from the very start and further provide system software with the means to provide a more secure system and better protect data integrity. this is essential in that if the platform cannot be protected, then the data it will store or process cannot really be protected. at a minimum, this technology provides discrete integrity measurements that can prove or disprove a software component’s integrity. these software components include, but are not limited to, code (such as bios, firmware, and operating system), platform and software configuration, events, state, status, and policies .
an mle provides a software - verification process to attest that all of the critical components of the pre - os launch environment have been verified against a known good source, ensuring a secure chain of custody from the moment a system is powered on until the system kernel or hypervisor takes control. an intel txt - aware hypervisor provides isolation for host oss and applications. to identify operating environments and hypervisors that support intel txt, please refer to the intel® trusted execution technology server platform availability matrix [ 4 ] .
txt is, no doubt, exciting new technology, but intel' forgot' about one small detail about smm ,
said rutkowska said .
the whole point about txt is that you don' t have to trust your, for example, your bios, you don' t have to trust your eeproms, anything. you can have a system that isn' t trusted, and magically, it is trusted .
this book details innovative technology that provides significant benefit to both the cloud consumer and the cloud provider when working to meet the ever increasing requirements of trust and control in the cloud. ”
the researchers said that a single design flaw is responsible for the bugs and results in more than 40 places in which code execution vulnerabilities could be introduced. they have exploited two vulnerabilities, strongly implying they could exploit more .
this book describes how this technology can benefit the datacenter, and it specifically addresses the concerns of the cloud service provider and the cloud service client. the goals of this book are as follows :
once select servers are provisioned with intel txt, the infrastructure level building blocks will enable a customer to build trusted compute pools .
as already mentioned in this document, the ability to assign sensitive workloads or ensure that confidential data is only executed on trusted platforms or trusted vms can have substantial benefits. consider the case where a patient wants to access his or her detailed medical history. a web hosting server with a trusted status could display the information to the end user once they have logged on, but if the web hosting server was found to be on a non - trusted host, the policy engine could reduce functionality and prevent logins .
the means for a trusted os (that is, the system operating in the secure mode environment) to provide additional security features .
the attack subverts txt' s trusted boot process, which relies on the trusted platform module to provide essential services, such as securely storing txt measurements in tpm registers. these measurements are used to ensure, for example, that only a trusted version of the hypervisor can get access to secrets, such as an encryption key, or authenticate itself to, say, an administrator' s laptop .
arm trustzone creates an isolated secure world which can be used to provide confidentiality and integrity to the system. it is used on billions of applications' processors to protect high - value code and data for diverse use cases including authentication, payment, content protection and enterprise. on application processors it is frequently used to provide a security boundary for a globalplatform trusted execution environment .
typical use cases for a arm trustzone based tee include: trusted boot, integrity management, authentication, payment, content protection, crypto and mobile device management. secure world device drivers can be used to interface to peripherals and for example used to enable trusted user interfaces .
* * special technical notice * * intel® trusted execution technology (intel® txt) is provided by intel® and operates on softlayer' s bare metal servers that require specific technical knowledge to support and manage. softlayer' s current delivery model allows us to turn intel txt either on or off; we cannot assist with configuration of intel txt settings due to the sensitivity of customer environments and data. it is recommended that customers either have staff trained in intel' s txt technologies or engage with a consulting firm with proven expertise in orchestrating root of trust and measured launch environment (mle) architecture .
intel trust attestation solution (enterprise edition) provides a web interface for ease of administration of trusted compute hosts, shown in figure 9 .
intel txt allows software to define a safe, isolated execution space within the larger system. controls on this execution space allow operations to be executed without being observed or influenced by unauthorized software. multiple of these execution spaces may exist on the system at once, and each has dedicated resources that are managed by the processor, chipset, and os kernel. there are many parts that make intel txt work within a server. but there isn’t a good publicly - available utility to validate that all these components are available and functional for server systems. in this blog, i will provide a brief overview of the components and the reference information, address the how - to setup intel txt supported environment, and the availability of hardware and software .
the trusted computing group has defined a series of specifications that define how a commercial computing platform can support code measurement in a trusted manner. intel developed an openattestation sdk, released to open source, that takes advantage of the infrastructure work group integrity report schema specification [ 45 ] .
the mobile platform work group (mpwg) promotes the implementation of tcg technologies in mobile devices to support the wide variety of business models in consumer, enterprise, government, and academic environments. mpwg defines specifications and recommendations for trustworthy mobile devices that address the resource constraints of mobile devices (e. g. , intermittent connectivity and limited battery life). mpwg collaborates closely with global platform and has co - developed recommended best practices for the use of trusted execution environment (tee) and other global platform technologies in trusted mobile devices .
please see the ovirt manual, “ trusted compute pools deployment [ 49 ] ” for guidelines on deploying oat within a red hat fedora environment .
it is true that txt is a very complex technology (the senter instruction is probably the masterpiece of the cisc architecture !), but i personally like it. in my opinion this is the first technology available for the pc platform that has the potential to really change something, much more then the nx - feature did a few years ago. before people will run to the comment box — if you would like to argue about the usefulness / uselessness of trusted computing / txt, please base your opinions on technical facts (read the spec !) and not on your feelings !
for an example of how to set up a filter on open attestation that can be used to schedule workloads on trusted compute pools, see openstack nova scheduler [ 52 ]. this could be used for use cases where confidential or sensitive workloads need to be isolated to a trusted compute pool .
tboot launch is the part of tboot that starts the measured launch process by executing the getsec [ senter ] instruction. this execution starts the dynamic chain of trust measurements, extending the root of trust measurement into pcr 17 and measures tboot post code into pcr 18 .
it' s a good place to mention that amd has its own version of the late launch implemented via skinit instruction. we haven' t looked at the amd technology thoroughly yet, so i will refrain from commenting on this .
instead of providing a fixed one - size - fits - all security solution, arm trustzone technology provides the infrastructure foundations, that allow the soc designer to choose from a range of components that can fulfil specific functions within the security environment .
the following link has more information about adding additional security and compliance to your workloads with a trusted secure cloud solution with ibm, vmware, and hytrust .
this section discusses ecosystem solutions that address various use cases for trusted compute pools; the use cases themselves are discussed at greater length later in this document .
the odca provider assurance usage model [ 25 ] has certain security requirements that can be met more easily with a siem solution combined with a trusted compute pool .
the openattestation sdk [ 50 ] can be used to grow your own management solution from the ground up. having the ability to communicate with trusted systems or trusted virtual machines via apis or through a trust agent can be used for basic policy enforcement. table 2 shows example service apis, from the openattestation sdk documentation .
intel txt uses a combination of hardware, firmware, and software, and is built on and fully compliant with the trusted computing group pc client and server specifications .
the sole purpose of intel txt technology is to provide a trusted way for loading and executing system software, e. g. operating system kernel or virtualization machine monitor. what is extraordinary here is that txt doesn' t make any assumptions about the state of the system before loading the software, thus making it possible for a user to ensure secure load of an os or vmm, even in a potentially compromised machine .
for example, a company can verify at any given moment that medical data containing patient records is only accessible from systems within a trusted compute pool to help ensure compliance .
for example, virtual environments allow migration of running vms among physical hosts. trusted systems can be grouped into trusted compute pools, to which policy can be applied to ensure that vms are only migrated to trusted systems within the cloud. figure 4 shows how vm migration can be controlled across resource pools, using trust as control instrumentation for migration policy. this approach enables it managers to restrict confidential data or sensitive workloads to platforms that are well controlled and have had their configurations thoroughly evaluated with the aid of intel txt .
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there are no hard and fast rules for using intel txt attestation. typically, third - party software uses intel txt measurements in the platform configuration registers to verify which host os is in control (and which version). knowing which host os then provides insight into what the trusted os has measured into the platform configuration registers reserved for the trusted os .
trusted boot (tboot) is an open - source, pre - kernel / hypervisor module that uses intel txt to perform measured and verified launch of an os kernel / hypervisor .
2015 cybersecurity innovation forum september 9, 2015 - september 11, 2015 the 2015 cybersecurity innovation forum is a three - day event hosted by the national institute of standards and technology, with participation from the national security agency, and the department of homeland security. this ...
intel trusted execution technology is relatively new for servers. it was initially developed for desktop and mobile computing platforms. it first debuted in servers in 2010 as attacks on datacenters started to escalate and calls for platform hardening formalized. for quite some time, server platforms were thought to be immune from attacks because they are typically kept in secure rooms and managed by highly skilled professionals. that is no longer sufficient. the frequency of attacks against datacenters is growing at astounding rates and those attacks are increasingly likely to have come from organized crime, corporate competitors, or sponsored by foreign governments with very sophisticated methodologies and deep resources. 1 corporate executives worry that a breach could be very costly—both socially and economically, in the face of new regulations and stiffer penalties for failing to protect personal information .
a platform that is not trustworthy places the workload at risk of compromise and cannot provide assurance that the claimed geolocation of the cloud server is accurate. geo - located platforms in which there is a hardware root of trust are aggregated into trusted compute pools, segregating them from untrusted resources and enabling trusted geolocation. this capability allows for enforcement of geolocation restrictions and auditing .
i' m glad somebody in the non - corporate security community is willing to stand up for tc. i' ve been interested in this technology for a long time, and have recently given a tech talk on it here at google, but a lot of people hear the words
trusted computing
and switch off. btw i think the reason microsoft and vmware don' t use txt is that it' s really not ready yet. the tboot reference implementation still requires quite obscure hardware and bios reflashing to work properly, and txt doesn' t yet provide any trusted i / o, making it useless for a large / interesting set of applications .
intel txt enabled bios, authenticated code modules (acm) created and signed by intel inside the bios, and trusted platform modules (tpm) integrated onto the motherboard that provides securely - generated cryptographic keys. this is a hardware - based mechanism that stores cryptographic keys and other data related to intel txt within the platform. it also provides hardware support for the attestation process to confirm the successful invocation of the intel txt environment. the attestation process uses the tpm to establish mutual trust between parties regarding execution environment during runtime .
ipl represents the normal boot process up until the time that the process would normally load and execute the kernel. the first module executed should now be the trusted boot (tboot) module .
nevertheless, trusted computing is becoming part of our lives, whether we want it or not. these days almost every new laptop comes with an on - board trusted platform module (tpm). microsoft' s palladium initiative have been renamed so many times in the recent years, that probably even people working at microsoft are confused now. nevertheless, some of the palladium technologies made their way into vista, and microsoft bitlocker is, without doubt, the most successful, widely deployed product that is based on the idea of trusted computing. (in fact the bitlocker is the
announced in 2005, intel' s txt technology, code named lagrande, was designed as a set of hardware security extensions to intel processors and chipsets. the goal is to protect against software - based attacks, such as rootkits, by creating an environment for software to run in its own space .
the baseline measurements are stored on a trusted platform module (tpm) hardware device. the tpm device is integrated within the server system and provides a range of intel txt security - related functions .
in these protocols a trusted vendor uses their private key (prk) to generate a signature of the code that they want to deploy, and pushes this to the device alongside the software binary. the device contains the public key (puk) of the vendor, which can be used to verify that the binary has not been modified and that it was provided by the trusted vendor in question .
standards - based trusted computing technologies developed by tcg members now are deployed in enterprise systems, storage systems, networks, embedded systems, and mobile devices and can help secure cloud computing and virtualized systems .
ensure your systems start up in a known good state. the power of intel txt establishes a root of trust providing the necessary underpinnings for successful evaluation of the computing platform and its protection. during the boot process, the trusted platform module (tpm) holds the computer generated keys for encryption, which essentially is a code that measures, extends, veriﬁes, and executes—over and over to establish a system as trusted .
and those
issues
gave us a starting point in developing a proof - of - concept (albeit very reliable) exploit that shows how we can bypass trusted boot process implemented by intel' s tboot .
intel txt must be enabled at multiple levels, including hardware, bios, os, and hypervisor. attestation and cloud - management software work with those components to enable management and reporting for the trusted system environment .
the simplest defense against shack attacks is to keep any secure world resource execution located in on - soc memory locations. if the code and data is never exposed outside of the soc package it becomes significantly more difficult to snoop or modify data values; a physical attack on the soc package is much harder than connecting a logic probe to a pcb track or a package pin .
( tcg) to enhance trust and therefore security on computing platforms. the charter of the tcg is to develop industry standards for trusted computing building blocks and define their use for various platform types. their efforts have produced a specification for a special security component (called a trusted platform module, or tpm) and specifications for how to use that module in pcs and servers. these documents are available from the tcg web site (
this changes what the tcg refers to as the tcb (trusted computing base), which, by definition, is the minimum amount of code that needs to be trusted for a platform. for server platforms, the tcb includes the processor microcode and the acm, whose signature and integrity are checked before the acm is allowed to execute. it must also include the bios (or at least a portion of the bios) .
writing code for the' normal world' remains the same as before: the application has access to privileged and non - privileged space plus interrupts. to call on libraries in the secure world, function entry points are linked into the project. this design simplifies software development for arm cortex - m processors that incorporate arm trustzone technology .
software cloud - management solutions are available for various use cases, including policy and compliance enforcement, automation, auditing, reporting, workload migration, etc. trusted compute pools can be combined with these solutions to enhance security .
for client platforms, the bios does not need to be trusted to clear memory in defense of a reset attack, because memory cleaning is performed by the acm before allowing the bios to access the memory. this is not possible for servers given the complexity of server memory configurations and ras features. thus in response to (or to detect) a reset attack, bios code integrity must be verified before the bios can be trusted to clean secrets from memory. typically, this is transparent to the os and end user, but it does have implications on how bios upgrades occur. for instance, upgrading bios causes its measurement to change, and if there is a reset attack after a bios update, the bios would not be trusted. to overcome this problem, intel txt allows for a signed bios policy that allows the acm to validate that the bios is still trusted using signature verification .
siem software creates a general security control point that aggregates the real - time alerts, event information, and reports from various security applications and activities into a database that can be queried, including the status of trusted compute pools .
in washington, dc in february. over the recent months, rafal and i have been looking at the intel txt technology as part of a work done for a customer, to see if this could be used to improve security of a product, from a typical user' s perspective. we figured out that it definitely could, but that there are also some issues…
while evaluating the effectiveness of the intel® txt technology, as part of a work done for a customer, we have identified several implementation flaws in the intel' s system software, which allowed to conduct the above mentioned stage - one attack. we have provided intel with extensive description of the flaws in december 2008, and intel is currently working on fixing those vulnerabilities .
carlin covey is a principal engineer in nxp’s security technology center, focusing on hardware support for trust architectures. carlin has contributed to the tcg trusted mobility solutions (tms) and mobile platform work groups since 2011, became a tms work group co - chair in 2013, and is a lead editor in both mobile work groups. carlin has been active in security engineering for over 30 years, serving as a system architect for multiple government and commercial hardware / software security systems. he was a technical contributor for open mobile terminal platform, pki forum and ietf pkix. he holds 10 patents on security - related innovations .
illustrates how platforms can be categorized based on intel txt measurements. a trusted compute pool consists of those servers that have demonstrated that they have a known good configuration. this excludes those with an unknown trust level (those that don’t support intel txt or don’t have it enabled) and, of course, those that fail the intel txt launch control policy. the trusted compute pool can be further categorized into pools of trust based on various trust policies set by the service provider and service client .
a trusted platform module (tpm) must be integrated with the chipset. the chipset and the tpm work together to ensure that the measurements and security properties of the system are not spoofed by untrusted components. tpms are devices manufactured by various third - party silicon providers that attach to the chipset via the low pin count (lpc) bus or serial peripheral interface (spi), and they provide a number of security functions. tpm capabilities and requirements are defined by the trusted computing group (tcg) [ 2 ], an industry initiative “formed to develop, define and promote open, vendor - neutral, industry standards for trusted computing building blocks and software interfaces across multiple platforms. ” tpm details can be found in the main tpm specification [ 3 ] .
a trusted os (a term used by the tcg for system code that invoked and passed the secure launch process—proving it meets the launch control policy) is allowed access to additional (privileged) security functions, including using additional pcrs. the trusted os can measure such things as additional code, data, and configuration into those pcrs, and use the content of any of the pcrs to make trust decisions and seal / unseal data. applications (both on and off the platform) can also use those measurements to make trust decisions .
a globalplatform tee can be used alongside other security technology such as secure elements, hypervisors and security sub - systems to provide multi - layered defence. the tee is designed to protect against software attacks (e. g. malware) and common physical attacks (so called
shack
attacks). globalplatform have created a protection profile for the tee which provides detailed information on the attacks that a tee should resist .
the measurement process for intel txt starts with hardware (that is, microcode designed into the intel processor) and uses hardware (special chipset registers) to start the measurement process and store the measurements in the trusted platform module chip in a way that cannot be spoofed by software .
these components are measured by creating an sha - 1 hash of the component and validating that hash against a set of securely stored values. adding launch control policy assures that os / hypervisor execution is allowed to continue if and only if the policy is satisfied. policy consists of the platform owner specifying the minimum version of acm, platform configuration as measured by platform configuration registers (pcrs) 0 - 7 in the tpm containing known good values, and the mle measurement being a known good value .
intel txt provides hardware monitoring and security controls that help assure businesses that a workload deployed on or migrated to softlayer’s infrastructure is running on trusted hardware in a known location. softlayer provides support for intel txt on a range of bare metal servers (see urltoken for a complete list) .
txt assures that system software, such as an os kernel or virtualization machine monitor (vmm), is loaded and executed in a trusted way. it will securely load a clean vmm or os kernel, even if the computer is compromised by boot sector viruses, biois rootkits, etc .
for an example of how to set up a filter using open attestation that can be used to schedule workloads on trusted compute pools, see openstack nova scheduler [ 18 ]. this code sample will provide insight for those who wish to use an open source approach for this particular use case .
intel txt is the hardware basis for mechanisms that validate platform trustworthiness during boot and launch, which enables reliable evaluation of the computing platform and its protection level. intel txt is compact and difficult to defeat or subvert, and it allows for flexibility and extensibility to verify the integrity of platform components during boot and launch, including bios, operating system loader, and hypervisor. because of the escalating sophistication of malicious threats, mainstream organizations must employ ever - more stringent security requirements and scrutinize every aspect of the execution environment .
authenticated code modules (acms) created and signed by intel must be present inside the bios. the acm contains platform - specific code which is authenticated to the chipset and executed in an isolated environment within the processor and the trusted environment (authenticated code mode), enabling the acm to perform secure tasks .
current anonymous internet browsing applications build dynamic routes using a network of willing hosts and layers of encryption along the route. the cross site scripting anonymous browser (
xab
) exploits vulnerable web sites / applications and victim browsers to build a network of drones. the intent of xab is not to replace the current applications, such as tor, but rather to provide an alternative that does not require willing participants and further stretches the functionality and intent of javascript and other browser technology .
the ultimate goal of intel txt is to provide a more secure and hardened computing environment, but it is not a means to an end. rather it is a tool for achieving higher levels of trust, and that trust does not come from simply enabling intel txt. the platform owner (e. g. , datacenter it manager) plays a key role in establishing what trust means, and intel txt provides the flexibility so that the system administrator can create a trust policy to match the requirements of the datacenter. servers that implement intel txt can demonstrate (attest) that they comply with a specific trust policy, and thus can be used to form pools of trusted servers based on the established trust policy. servers without intel txt and those that don’t meet the trust policy can be excluded from the trusted pools. with the right policies in place, the datacenter can provide trusted pools of servers, allowing service clients to create “ use policies ” depending on the trust level. one example of this is the ability to confine critical applications (such as e - commerce services processing credit card information) to run only within a trusted pool. this has many applications for both private and public cloud providers, as well as their clients .
the dynamic chain of trust starts on request by the operating system (os) via a special processor instruction, which measures and verifies another acm (the sinit acm), which will oversee the secure launch. the sinit acm performs additional checks, which include making sure the bios passed its security checks and has locked the platform configuration. the acm then measures the os (actually a portion of the os referred to as the trusted os) and invokes a launch control policy (lcp) engine that will determine if the platform configuration and os will be trusted (as defined by the policy set by the system administrator) .
as mentioned at the beginning, intel txt was first developed for client platforms (desktop and mobile). so is it the same technology? there are some differences, primarily because servers are more complex than client machines. one of the most prominent differences is the set of server features known as reliability, availability, and serviceability (ras). the complexity of server ras features such as memory mirroring, memory sparing, and error handling require capabilities that are very platform - specific, and thus must be performed by platform - specific code. this code must be trusted; in particular, the bios code that executes after a platform reset (to mitigate the reset attack) and the system management module (smm) code, which may need to change memory configuration and / or platform configuration while the system is in operation .
the host os is allowed to enter and exit the measured launch environment without having to reboot the platform. to exit, the host os simply invokes another special processor instruction that will reset the pcrs that were used to measure the launch and those that were set by the trusted os. of course, this action also curtails the host operating system’s access to some of the additional security resources. reentering the secure environment restarts the dynamic chain of the trust process, and thus recalculates the mle measurements storing them in those pcrs, allowing a different trusted os (or different configuration of the same os) to execute with its own set of trust credentials .
the intel trust attestation solution (enterprise edition), code - named “mount wilson, is a multi - hypervisor, multi - device, trust attestation / verification solution, for servers, clients, network / storage, and embedded devices. it can be used by cloud resource schedulers, siems, policy engines, and grc tools for trust verification, remediation, reporting, and compliance. it can also be used by a trust broker for secure access to trusted services from trusted clients. for additional information on intel trust attestation solution (enterprise edition), contact your intel field applications engineer (fae) or submit a request for more information [ 53 ] .
the mobile platform work group (mpwg) is a tcg technical wg that develops specifications and reference documents. the trusted mobility solutions work group (tms) is a tcg solutions wg that develops use cases, frameworks, and other reference documents. mpwg and tms collaborate frequently to address the evolving challenges of the mobile device markets around the world .
each time the host os boots, it detects if intel txt is enabled, and if so, performs a secure launch. as a trusted os, it continues measuring system code, configuration, and other entities into the platform configuration registers reserved for the os. the host os maintains a log that indicates what has been measured into each register .
we describe what intel ® txt is, how it works, and how it can be used to build more secure systems. we also show, however, weaknesses in current txt implementations and how they can be practically exploited. we will show a working exploit code against tboot - intel ®' s implementation of trusted boot process for xen and linux .
kathleen is a member of the senior professional staff in apl’s asymmetric operations department. kathleen has contributed to the tcg mobile platform work group since 2011, became a mpwg work group co - chair in 2015, and is a lead editor. her research at apl focuses on dynamic integrity measurement and trusted computing technologies for of desktop, server, and mobile platforms .
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by providing a hardware - based security foundation rooted in the processor and chipset, intel txt provides greater protection for information that is used and stored on servers. a key aspect of that protection is the provision of an isolated execution environment and associated sections of memory where operations can be conducted on sensitive data, isolated from the rest of the system. likewise, intel txt provides for sealed storage where sensitive data such as encryption keys can be securely kept to shield them from being compromised during an attack by malicious code. attestation mechanisms verify that the system has correctly invoked intel txt to make sure that code is, in fact, executing in this protected environment.
intel trusted execution technology ( intel txt , formerly known as lagrande technology ) is a computer hardware technology whose primary goals are : attestation of the authenticity of a platform and its operating system . assuring that an authentic operating system starts in a trusted environment , which can then be considered trusted . providing of a trusted operating system with additional security capabilities not available to an unproven one . intel txt uses a trusted platform module ( tpm ) and cryptographic techniques to provide measurements of software and platform components so that system software as well as local and remote management applications may use those measurements to make trust decisions . this technology is based on an industry initiative by the trusted computing group ( tcg ) to promote safer computing . it defends against software-based attacks aimed at stealing sensitive information by corrupting system or bios code , or modifying the platform 's configuration . 
intel trusted execution technology (intel txt, formerly known as lagrande technology) is a computer hardware technology whose primary goals are: attestation of the authenticity of a platform and its operating system. assuring that an authentic operating system starts in a trusted environment, which can then be considered trusted. providing of a trusted operating system with additional security capabilities not available to an unproven one. intel txt uses a trusted platform module (tpm) and cryptographic techniques to provide measurements of software and platform components so that system software as well as local and remote management applications may use those measurements to make trust decisions. this technology is based on an industry initiative by the trusted computing group (tcg) to promote safer computing. it defends against software-based attacks aimed at stealing sensitive information by corrupting system or bios code, or modifying the platform's configuration.
intel trusted execution technology (intel txt, formerly known as lagrande technology) is a computer hardware technology whose primary goals are: attestation of the authenticity of a platform and its operating system. assuring that an authentic operating system starts in a trusted environment, which can then be considered trusted. providing of a trusted operating system with additional security capabilities not available to an unproven one. intel txt uses a trusted platform module (tpm) and cryptographic techniques to provide measurements of software and platform components so that system software as well as local and remote management applications may use those measurements to make trust decisions. this technology is based on an industry initiative by the trusted computing group (tcg) to promote safer computing. it defends against software-based attacks aimed at stealing sensitive information by corrupting system or bios code, or modifying the platform's configuration.