Architectures for Security: A comparative analysis of hardware security features in Intel SGX and ARM TrustZone

Muhammad Asim Mukhtar (1) , Muhammad Khurram Bhatti (1) , Guy Gogniat (2)

1 ITU - Information Technology University [Lahore]
2 Lab-STICC_UBS_CACS_MOCS

A variety of applications are executing on a large untrusted computing base, which includes the operating system, hypervisor, firmware, and hardware. This large computing base is becoming complex and unverifiable. This untrusted computing base problem opens a way for a malicious application to steal secrets of a security-critical application by compromising the untrusted computing base. To resolve the untrusted computing base problem, computer architectures have introduced a concept of the trusted execution environment, which aim to ensure the sensitive data to be stored and processed in an isolated environment. Existing popular trusted execution environments are relying on hardware to isolate the environments without or minimum relying on system software. However, existing hardware assisted trusted execution environments are still vulnerable to sophisticated attacks. This paper analyses popular trusted execution environments that are Intel SGX and ARM TrustZone in order to provide better insights about the intended scope of the protection. This paper illustrates the functionality, implementation and security analysis.

Mots clés: Index Terms-SDNoC; and ARM TrustZone; Intel SGX; Memory isolation; TEE; Index Terms-Trusted Execution Environments; Communication Protocol; Chiplet Systems; NoC

Domaines: Architectures Matérielles [cs.AR]

Muhammad Asim Mukhtar, Muhammad Khurram Bhatti, Guy Gogniat. Architectures for Security: A comparative analysis of hardware security features in Intel SGX and ARM TrustZone. C-CODE 2019 - 2nd International Conference on Communication, Computing and Digital systems, Mar 2019, Islamabad, Pakistan. pp.299-304, ⟨10.1109/C-CODE.2019.8680982⟩. ⟨hal-02451440⟩