Waltzing the bear, or: A trusted virtual security module

Abstract

Cryptographic key material needs to be protected. Currently, this is achieved by either pure software based solutions or by more expensive dedicated hardware security modules. We present a practical architecture to project the security provided by the Trusted Platform Module and Intel Trusted eXecution Technology on a virtual security module. Our approach uses commodity personal computer hardware to offer integrity protection and strong isolation to a security module which implements a compact security API that has been fully verified. Performance results suggest that our approach offers an attractive balance between speed, security and cost. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013.