IHS Transfer Hardware Inventory Verification
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Solution Overview
Problem
Information Handling Systems (IHSs) face challenges in securely transferring hardware components and ensuring the integrity of hardware configurations during transfers, as malicious actors can exploit vulnerabilities in the attack surface, and existing methods lack robust mechanisms for validating the hardware state between transfer parties.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a processor-based system that generates and verifies hardware inventories using cryptographic credentials, publishes these inventories on a distributed ledger, and compares them to ensure discrepancies are identified, thereby securing the transfer process and maintaining hardware integrity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If hardware inventory verification is implemented during IHS transfer, then hardware integrity and security are improved, but transfer process complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by generating and signing the hardware inventory at the transferor's side before the actual transfer occurs. The inventory is created, cryptographically signed with the transferor's credentials, and published to a distributed ledger in advance, allowing the recipient to verify the original hardware state without adding complexity to the physical transfer process.
Solution Approach 2:
A distributed ledger serves as an intermediary between the transferor and recipient, storing and verifying the signed hardware inventory. This mediator enables trustless verification of hardware integrity without requiring direct complex interactions between the parties, simplifying the transfer process while maintaining security.
2Reliability
If cryptographic signing of hardware inventory is performed, then security against malicious access is improved, but processing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The cryptographic signing of the hardware inventory is performed in advance at the transferor's side, before the transfer occurs. This preliminary action allows the signed inventory to be published to the distributed ledger beforehand, so that during the actual transfer, the recipient only needs to retrieve and verify the pre-signed inventory, significantly reducing processing time while maintaining security.
3Loss of information
If hardware inventory is published on distributed ledger, then transparency and verification capability are improved, but system complexity and storage requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of storing complete hardware inventory details locally on each device, the system creates a cryptographic copy (signature) of the inventory and stores it on the distributed ledger. The recipient can verify the hardware state by checking this cryptographic copy against the actual hardware, providing full verification capability without requiring complex local storage of entire inventories.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods support transfer of an Information Handling System (IHS) from a first individual to a second individual. Upon notification of the transfer of the IHS, a credential of the second individual is received and an inventory is generated of detected hardware of the IHS. The generated hardware inventory is signed using the credential received from the second individual and the signed hardware inventory is published, thus establishing the inventory at the time the transfer is initiated. Upon actual transfer of the IHS to the second individual, another inventory of detected IHS hardware is generated and the published hardware inventory signed using the credential of the second individual is retrieved. The inventory of detected IHS hardware generated by the second individual is compared against the signed hardware inventory generated at the time the transfer was initiated in order to identify any discrepancies in the IHS hardware.