A Minimalist Approach to Remote Attestation

Embedded computing devices increasingly permeate many aspects of modern life: from medical to automotive, from building and factory automation to weapons, from critical infrastructures to home entertainment. Despite their specialized nature as well as limited resources and connectivity, these device...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Francillon, A, Nguyen, Q, Rasmussen, K, Tsudik, G
Format: Conference item
Published: 2014
_version_ 1826299884902285312
author Francillon, A
Nguyen, Q
Rasmussen, K
Tsudik, G
author_facet Francillon, A
Nguyen, Q
Rasmussen, K
Tsudik, G
author_sort Francillon, A
collection OXFORD
description Embedded computing devices increasingly permeate many aspects of modern life: from medical to automotive, from building and factory automation to weapons, from critical infrastructures to home entertainment. Despite their specialized nature as well as limited resources and connectivity, these devices are now becoming an increasingly popular and attractive target for attacks, especially, malware infections. A number of approaches have been suggested to detect and/or mitigate such attacks. They vary greatly in terms of application generality and underlying assumptions. However, one common theme is the need for <em>Remote Attestation</em>, a distinct security service that allows a trusted party (verifier) to check the internal state of a remote untrusted embedded device (prover). Many prior methods assume some form of trusted hardware on the prover, which is not a good option for small and low-end embedded devices. To this end, we investigate the feasibility of Remote Attestation without trusted hardware. This paper provides a systematic treatment of Remote Attestation, starting with a precise definition of the desired service and proceeding to its systematic deconstruction into necessary and sufficient properties. Next, these are mapped into a minimal collection of hardware and software components that result in secure Remote Attestation. One distinguishing feature of this line of research is the need to prove (or, at least argue for) architectural minimality – an aspect rarely encountered in security research. This work also provides a promising platform for attaining more advanced security services and guarantees.
first_indexed 2024-03-07T05:08:45Z
format Conference item
id oxford-uuid:dad4a9ae-5d37-4d19-99a4-df4d65e8bc26
institution University of Oxford
last_indexed 2024-03-07T05:08:45Z
publishDate 2014
record_format dspace
spelling oxford-uuid:dad4a9ae-5d37-4d19-99a4-df4d65e8bc262022-03-27T09:06:01ZA Minimalist Approach to Remote AttestationConference itemhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_5794uuid:dad4a9ae-5d37-4d19-99a4-df4d65e8bc26Department of Computer Science2014Francillon, ANguyen, QRasmussen, KTsudik, GEmbedded computing devices increasingly permeate many aspects of modern life: from medical to automotive, from building and factory automation to weapons, from critical infrastructures to home entertainment. Despite their specialized nature as well as limited resources and connectivity, these devices are now becoming an increasingly popular and attractive target for attacks, especially, malware infections. A number of approaches have been suggested to detect and/or mitigate such attacks. They vary greatly in terms of application generality and underlying assumptions. However, one common theme is the need for <em>Remote Attestation</em>, a distinct security service that allows a trusted party (verifier) to check the internal state of a remote untrusted embedded device (prover). Many prior methods assume some form of trusted hardware on the prover, which is not a good option for small and low-end embedded devices. To this end, we investigate the feasibility of Remote Attestation without trusted hardware. This paper provides a systematic treatment of Remote Attestation, starting with a precise definition of the desired service and proceeding to its systematic deconstruction into necessary and sufficient properties. Next, these are mapped into a minimal collection of hardware and software components that result in secure Remote Attestation. One distinguishing feature of this line of research is the need to prove (or, at least argue for) architectural minimality – an aspect rarely encountered in security research. This work also provides a promising platform for attaining more advanced security services and guarantees.
spellingShingle Francillon, A
Nguyen, Q
Rasmussen, K
Tsudik, G
A Minimalist Approach to Remote Attestation
title A Minimalist Approach to Remote Attestation
title_full A Minimalist Approach to Remote Attestation
title_fullStr A Minimalist Approach to Remote Attestation
title_full_unstemmed A Minimalist Approach to Remote Attestation
title_short A Minimalist Approach to Remote Attestation
title_sort minimalist approach to remote attestation
work_keys_str_mv AT francillona aminimalistapproachtoremoteattestation
AT nguyenq aminimalistapproachtoremoteattestation
AT rasmussenk aminimalistapproachtoremoteattestation
AT tsudikg aminimalistapproachtoremoteattestation
AT francillona minimalistapproachtoremoteattestation
AT nguyenq minimalistapproachtoremoteattestation
AT rasmussenk minimalistapproachtoremoteattestation
AT tsudikg minimalistapproachtoremoteattestation