Cloud Data Confidentiality via Trusted Execution Environments
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Cloud computing platforms face challenges in ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of private data for businesses engaging in e-commerce transactions, as third-party providers may gain competitive advantages by accessing sensitive transactional data, necessitating comprehensive end-to-end data protection across the data life-cycle.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a secure cloud computing environment with Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) that isolate sensitive data from the normal world, using encrypted storage and complex key management to ensure data remains confidential and secure throughout its life-cycle, including 'at rest', 'in transit', and 'in use' phases.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If cloud platform operators access private data for processing and storage, then data processing capability and service functionality are improved, but data confidentiality and security are compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments data into public data and encrypted private data portions. The encrypted private data is further segmented into multiple shares that are distributed across different storage locations. This segmentation allows the cloud platform to process data while preventing any single entity from accessing the complete private information, thus maintaining both productivity and confidentiality.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces encrypted data shares as an intermediary between the cloud platform operators and the actual private data. The cloud platform processes encrypted shares rather than the raw private data itself. This intermediary mechanism enables data processing capability while ensuring that the platform operators cannot access or misuse the confidential information.
2Reliability
If encrypted storage is implemented for private data, then data security and confidentiality are improved, but storage complexity and key management overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The encryption key is segmented into multiple shares that are distributed across different storage locations and managed by different entities. This key segmentation reduces the burden on any single key management system and enhances security through distributed control. The system can retrieve and reconstruct the original key only when sufficient shares are combined, maintaining security while simplifying individual key management operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary key generation and segmentation before data storage. Encryption keys are pre-divided into shares and distributed to various storage locations in advance. This preliminary action ensures that when data needs to be stored or retrieved, the key management process is already prepared and simplified, reducing operational complexity while maintaining high security standards.
3Reliability
If Trusted Execution Environments are used to isolate sensitive data, then data integrity and confidentiality are improved, but system complexity and computational overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the execution environment into trusted and untrusted zones, and segments data into encrypted shares that are processed within the TEE. This segmentation allows sensitive operations to occur within the secure boundary while keeping the overall system architecture relatively simple. The TEE handles only the necessary cryptographic operations on encrypted shares, reducing the complexity burden compared to fully encrypted systems.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses encrypted copies or shares of the original data that can be processed within the TEE without exposing the actual private data. These encrypted copies maintain the necessary structure for processing while being safe to handle in the trusted environment. This copying approach simplifies the TEE implementation by working with standardized encrypted structures rather than requiring complex custom processing logic.
4Reliability
If end-to-end encryption is implemented across the data life-cycle, then data confidentiality is improved, but data accessibility and processing efficiency deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments encrypted data into shares that can be independently processed and stored. Different segments can be accessed and processed by different cloud services based on their needs, without requiring decryption of the entire data set. This segmentation maintains end-to-end encryption confidentiality while improving processing efficiency by enabling parallel and distributed operations on data segments.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the cryptographic parameters dynamically based on processing needs. For operations that don't require full data access, the system can work with encrypted shares using specialized cryptographic operations. This parameter change approach allows efficient processing of encrypted data without full decryption, maintaining confidentiality while improving productivity for common operations.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods described herein securely compute private data on a cloud platform. A network device in the cloud platform obtains a product or service description from a first user. The description includes a combination of public data and encrypted private data based on a first encryption key. The network device receives a query from an end device of a second user and retrieves, based on the query, the product or service description. The network device forwards the description to a trusted execution environment (TEE) instance for decryption of the encrypted private data, processing of the private data, and re-encryption of the private data with a second encryption key. The network device receives the re-encrypted private data from the TEE instance and assembles the re-encrypted private data and the public data into a query response for presentation on the end device. The network device sends, to the end device, the query response including the re-encrypted private data and the public data.