Implementing an untrusted operating system on trusted hardware

ABSTRACT

Recently, there has been considerable interest in providing "trusted computing platforms" using hardware~---~TCPA and Palladium being the most publicly visible examples. In this paper we discuss our experience with building such a platform using a traditional time-sharing operating system executing on XOM~---~a processor architecture that provides copy protection and tamper-resistance functions. In XOM, only the processor is trusted; main memory and the operating system are not trusted.Our operating system (XOMOS) manages hardware resources for applications that don't trust it. This requires a division of responsibilities between the operating system and hardware that is unlike previous systems. We describe techniques for providing traditional operating systems services in this context.Since an implementation of a XOM processor does not exist, we use SimOS to simulate the hardware. We modify IRIX 6.5, a commercially available operating system to create xomos. We are then able to analyze the performance and implementation overheads of running an untrusted operating system on trusted hardware.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.4 OPERATING SYSTEMS
      D.4.6 Security and Protection
          Subjects: Cryptographic controls

Additional Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.1 PROCESSOR ARCHITECTURES
      C.1.0 General

  D. Software
  D.4 OPERATING SYSTEMS
      D.4.1 Process Management
      D.4.6 Security and Protection
          Subjects: Access controls

General Terms:
Security

Keywords:
XOM, XOMOS, untrusted operating systems