Confidential computing’s core trust mechanism is broken. The fix may not exist


Vendors are trying to position “confidential computing” as the technical backbone of Europe’s sovereign cloud ambitions. But new research shows that a security protocol used to prove cryptographic trust in the system may have a fundamental architectural flaw.

Confidential computing rests on a mechanism called remote attestation, in which a server cryptographically proves to a client that it is running inside a genuine, unmodified Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) before any sensitive data changes hands. Intel’s product pages promise TDX will “add safeguards to data sovereignty and governance.” Google Cloud describes its confidential computing infrastructure as offering “full, auditable control over access to customer data.”

Read more…
Source:  The Register


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • Black Kingdom ransomware

    June 17, 2021

    Black Kingdom ransomware appeared on the scene back in 2019, but we observed some activity again in 2021. The ransomware was used by an unknown adversary for exploiting a Microsoft Exchange vulnerability (CVE-2021-27065). The complexity and sophistication of the Black Kingdom family cannot bear a comparison with other Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) or Big Game Hunting (BGH) families. ...

  • Kremlin spokesman lists top countries where cyber attacks originate

    June 17, 2021

    Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has prepared a list of the top countries, where cyber attacks originate, at the request of Russian President Vladimir Putin, handing over this list to reporters. “In the first half of 2020, the leaders among all countries where all types of cyber attacks originated are: the US, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, the UK,” ...

  • Bash Ransomware DarkRadiation Targets Red Hat- and Debian-based Linux Distributions

    June 17, 2021

    A recently discovered Bash ransomware piqued our interest in multiple ways. Upon investigating, we found that the attack chain is fully implemented as a bash script, but it also seems that the scripts are still under development. Most components of this attack mainly target Red Hat and CentOS Linux distributions; however, in some scripts Debian-based Linux ...

  • Matanbuchus: Malware-as-a-Service with Demonic Intentions

    June 16, 2021

    Unit 42 researchers often spend time investigating what we call non-traditional sources. Non-traditional sources often include underground marketplaces and sites, spanning from forums on the Tor network to Telegram channels and other marketplaces. One such case that we investigated involves a threat actor called BelialDemon, who is a member of several underground forums and marketplaces. In ...

  • Ferocious Kitten: 6 years of covert surveillance in Iran

    June 16, 2021

    Ferocious Kitten is an APT group that since at least 2015 has been targeting Persian-speaking individuals who appear to be based in Iran. Although it has been active for a long time, the group has mostly operated under the radar and has not been covered by security researchers to the best of our knowledge. It ...

  • Ransomware Poll: 80% of Victims Don’t Pay Up

    June 16, 2021

    Ransomware is on the rise, but what toll does it take on the real world? Threatpost set out to answer that question in an exclusive poll aimed at taking the pulse of organizations wrestling with attacks, including looking at mitigations and the defenses organizations have in place. When viewed against the backdrop of complementary reports from ...