Trusted Domain Controller for Secure Cloud Data Processing
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current secure data processing techniques in cloud computing are inadequate as they allow unprivileged processes to gain administrator privileges, enabling malicious activities, and users must trust cloud providers with their data, despite encryption limitations and high overheads in real-time encryption and decryption.
Innovation Solution
A secure data processing apparatus with a trusted domain and a trusted domain controller that ensures encrypted data is only decrypted within the trusted domain, using non-reprogrammable cipher hardware to enforce encryption and decryption, thereby maintaining data confidentiality and performance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If traditional memory protection mechanisms are used to isolate execution environments, then data confidentiality between users is improved, but security is worsened because unprivileged processes can gain administrator privileges through exploits in the operating system kernel
Solution Approach 1:
The system divides the computing environment into isolated execution environments (virtual machines) with strict memory protection boundaries. Each user process is confined to its own address space, preventing unauthorized access to other users' data and kernel memory, thereby maintaining confidentiality while preventing privilege escalation exploits.
Solution Approach 2:
A hardware-based virtual machine monitor is introduced as an intermediary layer between user processes and the physical hardware. This mediator enforces memory protection rules and isolates execution environments, preventing exploits from breaking through to gain administrator privileges while maintaining data confidentiality.
2Reliability
If real-time encryption and decryption is implemented to protect data confidentiality, then security is improved, but processing performance is worsened due to high computational overhead
Solution Approach 1:
Data is encrypted before being transferred to or stored in the cloud, and decryption is performed only when necessary. This preliminary encryption action ensures data confidentiality without requiring continuous real-time decryption during storage and transmission, reducing overall processing overhead.
Solution Approach 2:
The encryption and decryption operations are extracted from the main data processing workflow and performed separately at data boundaries (before cloud upload and after cloud download). This separation allows the main processing operations to run without encryption overhead, maintaining performance while ensuring security.
Data Source
AI summary
A secure data processing apparatus and method are disclosed. The secure data processing apparatus is operable to securely process user data provided by a user and includes a trusted domain having a trusted bus; a trusted domain controller coupling the trusted bus with an untrusted bus of an untrusted domain, the trusted domain controller being operable to ensure that encrypted incoming user data received over the untrusted bus is decrypted and provided over the trusted bus as the incoming user data and to ensure that outgoing user data is encrypted and provided over the untrusted bus as encrypted outgoing data. The trusted domain controller that only encrypted data is provided in the untrusted domain reducing the chance of the data being compromised. The trusted domain controller ensures that access to the unencrypted data within the trusted domain can be avoided. Confidentiality of the data can be assured without performance shortfalls.