Alan M. Dunn, Owen Hofmann, Brent Waters, and Emmett Witchel

Proceedings of the USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security) 2011.

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areas
Security

abstract
The Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is commonly thought of as hardware that can increase platform security. However, it can also be used for malicious purposes. The TPM, along with other hardware, can implement a cloaked computation, whose memory state cannot be observed by any other software, including the operating system and hypervisor. We show that malware can use cloaked computations to hide essential secrets (like the target of an attack) from a malware analyst. We describe and implement a protocol that establishes an encryption key under control of the TPM that can only be used by a specific infection program. An infected host then proves the legitimacy of this key to a remote malware distribution platform, and receives and executes an encrypted payload in a way that prevents software visibility of the decrypted payload. We detail how malware can benefit from cloaked computations and discuss defenses against our protocol. Hardening legitimate uses of the TPM against attack improves the resilience of our malware, creating a Catch-22 for secure computing technology.