Confidential Computing: What Is It and What Are Its Benefits? 

In recent years, data has become a valuable asset that every business sector shouldn’t neglect. However, information exists in different states and constantly crosses numerous networks and devices, which can result in data breaches. Because of this, organizations should be on the lookout for the latest security measures.

In mainstream technology, cryptography is used to give data integrity and confidentiality. In addition, a combination of techniques and methods is utilized to further protect data by utilizing a layered approach to security. However, security shouldn’t stop there. Breaches and leaks are inevitable since attackers constantly develop new tactics and continue hitting critical industries, such as healthcare or finance.

To address these emerging dangers, organizations around the world started using confidential computing – the new kid in town in today’s cybersecurity world.

What Is Confidential Computing?

Confidential Computing refers to protecting data using hardware-based Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs). A Trusted Execution Environment provides data integrity, confidentiality, and code integrity assurances.

Personal information has long been a source of concern as a result of digitalization. Events such as the Cambridge Analytica incident and other reports of large businesses’ systems getting hacked illustrate how vulnerable data can be in the digital world. While nobody wants their information like address details or private images to be compromised, the ramifications of sensitive data getting leaked are far more concerning for corporations and governments. That’s why data security should be at the top of every organization’s priority list.

The newest trend today when it comes to data protection is the use of confidential computing. It performs computations using a hardware-based Trusted Execution Environment that is applied in any platform, including IoT and user devices, on-premise and public cloud servers, edge deployments, and gateways. It gives a primer solution by securing data while it is still used and focuses primarily on the data that are still being processed rather than the final output. 

It is not restricted to such trusted execution being performed by a specific processor since trusted processing might occur in various areas, including any network interface card or GPU. It is also not confined to solutions that utilize encryption, despite the fact that this is now the most often used technology today. Lastly, it separates sensitive and confidential data and stores it within a secured system such as cloud technology. Then, no one can access that data inside without authorization. 

How Does Confidential Computing Work?

A simple way to describe how confidential computing works is that hardware and layers of digital security are properly oriented to secure and protect data. The thing is, even if you have layers of security attached and running, theoretically, a certain layer can still be cracked. This necessitates the requirement for security solutions at the lowest feasible layer going to its hardware components. And that is where confidential computing comes in.  

As mentioned before, confidential computing needs only Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) for it to work. It is defined as a common practice that lays out a level of assurance to data confidentiality (unviewable data), data integrity (data can’t be altered), and code integrity (execution of codes can’t be altered). A hardware-based TEE employs hardware-backed approaches to give enhanced security assurances for data protection and code execution inside the respective environment.

Because of this, unauthorized entities cannot do anything to any data and make the security of the whole structure impenetrable, including the host, system admins, host operating system, service providers, and the infrastructure owner as well. Together, these characteristics give an assurance not just that the data is kept secure but also that the calculations conducted are valid, enabling to verification of the results of every computation.

What Can Confidential Computing Contribute to Cybersecurity?

Understanding the idea of confidential computing is a good place to start, but to really grasp its significance and advantages over other tools is a must. While some organizations might think that equipping the company devices with a VPN is enough to protect data that is passed around, in reality, data in use requires more robust security measures, like confidential computing. 

Luckily, this technology is rapidly gaining traction and virtually every company today depends on it to some extent to protect its data. The applications might reach practically any business sector, nonetheless, it is most advantageous for businesses that handle large amounts of data.

For example, in the finance industry, confidential computing enables various organizations and companies to communicate data without exposing it to prying eyes. Using it enables banks to share data and do analysis, uncover potentially suspicious trends, and make it easier to detect incidents of fraud early on. Confidential computing also opens the door to data applications previously regarded as too dangerous, such as managing health industry data, where AI is used to analyze the details of critically ill patients in order to identify trends and predict outcomes. 

Depending on the specifics of a Trusted Execution Environment, it may additionally provide the following:

Programmability

Some of these Trusted Execution Environments can be programmed with a specific arbitrary code, while some others only provide limited operations. Due to its function, it can provide the flexibility of being programmed to suit the needs of security intended for the infrastructure or system. Furthermore, a TEE may comprise codes fixed at the same time of production.

Code Confidentiality

Using a Trusted Execution Environment not only protects data but also protects the code in which it is utilized from the viewpoint of unauthorized entities. It can enhance the protection of any algorithm or any sensitive intellectual property sophistically.

Recoverability

Some of these Trusted Execution Environments can provide a way to recover from a latent compromised state. A possible scenario for this is when a component no longer meets the needed requirements, and the launch authentication mechanism goes wrong, confidential computing may update the specific component and try to recover the launch status. Generally, recoverability here needs to have some components that remain trusted since it acts as a foundation when it promotes other components to be updated. 

Attestability

In some cases, a Trusted Execution Environment can produce reliable proof of state and origin that can be verified by other third-party service providers, whether manually or programmatically. With that, decision-making on whether to trust the code can be attested and attained. 

Authenticated Launch

More of these Trusted Executing Environments can permit and authenticate checks before launching a process and can turn down any unauthorized ones.

The Significance of Confidential Computing in Cybersecurity Today

Today, the goal of confidential computing is to decrease the capability of any platform owner or operator to acquire code and data inside any Trusted Execution Environment such that this approach is no longer conceptually feasible to any attack path during the execution process. Confidential computing may outperform conventional strategies for securing data in a variety of ways, including cost and usability, in addition to integrity and confidentiality. This enhancement enables operators, implementers, and designers to focus on other system elements while maintaining delicate algorithms and data. 

It is essential to know that during any process execution, data protection is vital as confidential computing focuses more on the usage and transfer of data. Because of that, confidential computing will ensure the correct deployment of the system process, securing data storage from the outside environment, allowing data migration between environments, and providing secured transportation of data and workloads to TEE environments. Furthermore, confidential computing also covers protocol attacks, software attacks, cryptographic attacks, basic physical attacks, and basic upstream supply-chain attacks. 

Final Takeaway

Confidential computing, via the utilization of hardware-based, Trusted Execution Environments, secures delicate code, and data from a new class of dangers that may possibly occur during data processing which is a process difficult to protect. Additionally, in traditional threat models in any security system, the system operator is often regarded as trustworthy, but when it comes to confidential computing, admins are also scrutinized in a way to protect data from malicious owners. 

When confidential computing is combined with hardware-based attestation approaches, it may give a high degree of confidence in code, data integrity, and confidentiality. In addition, it will further increase security by guaranteeing code and data integrity. With these enhanced safeguards, data can be used and processed safely in a variety of ways that were never done before.

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Cybernews.com is a research-based online publication that helps people navigate a safe path through their increasingly complex digital lives.

The Cybernews Editorial team provides cybersecurity-related news, analysis, and opinions by industry insiders.

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