Rapid Trust Establishment for Pervasive Personal Computing

  • Authors:
  • Ajay Surie;Adrian Perrig;Mahadev Satyanarayanan;David J. Farber

  • Affiliations:
  • Carnegie Mellon University;Carnegie Mellon University;Carnegie Mellon University;Carnegie Mellon University

  • Venue:
  • IEEE Pervasive Computing
  • Year:
  • 2007

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Abstract

The emergence of pervasive computing systems such as Internet Suspend/Resume has facilitated access to a user's personalized computing environment for transient use on unmanaged hardware. Trust-Sniffer, a tool that helps users gain confidence in using software on an untrusted machine, addresses this usage model's associated security risks. The root of trust is a small, user-carried device such as a USB memory stick. Trust-Sniffer verifies the target machine's on-disk boot image and incrementally expands the zone of trust by validating applications, including dynamically linked libraries, before they execute. Trust-Sniffer validates an application by comparing its checksum to a list of known good checksums. If it can't validate a binary, it blocks the binary's execution. This staged approach to establishing confidence in an untrusted machine strikes a balance between security and ease of use and facilitates rapid use of transient hardware. This article is part of a special issue on security and privacy.