Cloud terminal: secure access to sensitive applications from untrusted systems

  • Authors:

  • Lorenzo Martignoni;Pongsin Poosankam;Matei Zaharia;Jun Han;Stephen McCamant;Dawn Song;Vern Paxson;Adrian Perrig;Scott Shenker;Ion Stoica

  • Affiliations:

  • University of California, Berkeley;University of California, Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon University;University of California, Berkeley;Carnegie Mellon University;University of California, Berkeley;University of California, Berkeley;University of California, Berkeley;Carnegie Mellon University;University of California, Berkeley;University of California, Berkeley

  • Venue:
  • USENIX ATC'12 Proceedings of the 2012 USENIX conference on Annual Technical Conference
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

Current PC- and web-based applications provide insufficient security for the information they access, because vulnerabilities anywhere in a large client software stack can compromise confidentiality and integrity. We propose a new architecture for secure applications, Cloud Terminal, in which the only software running on the end host is a lightweight secure thin terminal, and most application logic is in a remote cloud rendering engine. The secure thin terminal has a very small TCB (23 KLOC) and no dependence on the untrusted OS, so it can be easily checked and remotely attested to. The terminal is also general-purpose: it simply supplies a secure display and input path to remote software. The cloud rendering engine runs an off-the-shelf application in a restricted VM hosted by the provider, but resource sharing between VMs lets one server support hundreds of users. We implement a secure thin terminal that runs on standard PC hardware and provides a responsive interface to applications like banking, email, and document editing. We also show that our cloud rendering engine can provide secure online banking for 5-10 cents per user per month.