Beyond secure channels

ABSTRACT

A Trusted Channel is a secure communication channel which is cryptographically bound to the state of the hardware and software configurations of the endpoints. In this paper, we describe secure and flexible mechanisms to establish and maintain Trusted Channels which do not have the deficiencies of previous proposals. We also present a concrete implementation proposal based on Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol, and Trusted Computing technology. We use Subject Key Attestation Evidence extensions to X.509v3 certificates to convey configuration information during key agreement (TLS handshake). The resulting session key is kept within the Trusted Computing Base, and is updated in a predetermined manner to reflect any detected change in the local configuration. This allows an endpoint to detect changes in the configuration of the peer endpoint while the Trusted Channel is in place, and to decide according to a local policy whether to maintain or tear down the Trusted Channel

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.2 Network Protocols
          Subjects: Applications (SMTP, FTP, etc.)

Additional Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.4 Distributed Systems
          Subjects: Client/server

General Terms:
Security

Keywords:
TLS, hypervisor, microkernel, relay attack, remote attestation, state changes, trusted channel, trusted computing, virtualization