Bootstrapping Trust in Modern Computers

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Bryan Parno, Jonathan M. McCune, Adrian Perrig

   Pages 1-2

3. What Do We Need to Know? Techniques for Recording Platform State

   • Bryan Parno, Jonathan M. McCune, Adrian Perrig

   Pages 3-11

4. Can We Use Platform Information Locally?

   • Bryan Parno, Jonathan M. McCune, Adrian Perrig

   Pages 13-18

5. Can We Use Platform Information Remotely?

   • Bryan Parno, Jonathan M. McCune, Adrian Perrig

   Pages 19-24

6. How Do We Make Sense of Platform State?

   • Bryan Parno, Jonathan M. McCune, Adrian Perrig

   Pages 25-33

7. Roots of Trust

   • Bryan Parno, Jonathan M. McCune, Adrian Perrig

   Pages 35-40

8. Challenges in Bootstrapping Trust in Secure Hardware

   • Bryan Parno, Jonathan M. McCune, Adrian Perrig

   Pages 41-50

9. Validating the Process

   • Bryan Parno, Jonathan M. McCune, Adrian Perrig

   Pages 51-52

10. Applications

    • Bryan Parno, Jonathan M. McCune, Adrian Perrig

    Pages 53-57

11. Implementing Trust Bootstrapping: Open Source Tools

    • Bryan Parno, Jonathan M. McCune, Adrian Perrig

    Pages 59-60

12. Human Factors & Usability

    • Bryan Parno, Jonathan M. McCune, Adrian Perrig

    Pages 61-72

13. Limitations

    • Bryan Parno, Jonathan M. McCune, Adrian Perrig

    Pages 73-74

14. Additional Reading

    • Bryan Parno, Jonathan M. McCune, Adrian Perrig

    Pages 75-76

15. Summary

    • Bryan Parno, Jonathan M. McCune, Adrian Perrig

    Pages 77-77

16. Back Matter

    Pages 79-101

    PDF

Trusting a computer for a security-sensitive task (such as checking email or banking online) requires the user to know something about the computer's state. We examine research on securely capturing a computer's state, and consider the utility of this information both for improving security on the local computer (e.g., to convince the user that her computer is not infected with malware) and for communicating a remote computer's state (e.g., to enable the user to check that a web server will adequately protect her data). Although the recent "Trusted Computing" initiative has drawn both positive and negative attention to this area, we consider the older and broader topic of bootstrapping trust in a computer. We cover issues ranging from the wide collection of secure hardware that can serve as a foundation for trust, to the usability issues that arise when trying to convey computer state information to humans. This approach unifies disparate research efforts and highlights opportunities for additional work that can guide real-world improvements in computer security.

• Bootstrapping
• Root of Trust
• Secure Boot
• Secure Hardware
• Trusted Computing
• Trusted Platform Module

• Microsoft Research, Redmond, USA

  Bryan Parno

• Carnegie Mellon University, CyLab, Pittsburgh, USA

  Jonathan M. McCune, Adrian Perrig

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