Infrastructure for Trusted Environment: In Search of a Solution

Millions of PCs are currently sold equipped with a Trusted Platform Module, TPM, serving as a root of trust on the platform. Trusted Computing as an area of security has acquired significant visibility, and many new products and a growing number of research projects in areas ranging from virtualization to network security are based on Trusted Computing technologies and vision. In order to fully realize the vision of the Trusted Computing community, dedicated or compatible trust infrastructure for verification and attestation is required. Similar to other trust-enabling technologies, Trusted Computing needs an infrastructure that can verify the claim that a device is genuine and can be trusted to take part in a transaction, in which it is involved. Such an infrastructure will enable an environment where individuals can use the technology for protected transactions and potentially employ less risky authentication methods. This paper explores the role of infrastructure in Trusted Computing, starting with the discussion of the infrastructure’s importance and issues in trust establishment, followed by the description of the basics of Trusted Computing functionality requiring infrastructure support. We use examples of other trust enabling infrastructures, such as general-purpose PKI and infrastructure for Identity Federation to highlight common approaches. Finally, we touch upon economics of trust and intermediation, in order to define potential models for building enabling infrastructure for Trusted Computing.. While the paper doesn’t propose concrete solutions for the infrastructure problem in Trusted Computing, some possible avenues of building the necessary framework are outlined.