Survey on Trusted Computing

Geb. 50.34, SR 236 und online: https://i62bbb.tm.kit.edu/b/mic-7xx-rfr

2023-03-07

15:45

As there exists a need for secure computing, especially in cloud computing major chip
developers like Intel and AMD provide solutions for trusted computing. One solution is
the usage of a Trusted Execution Environment. This survey looks at the Intel SGX, AMD
SEV, ARM TrustZone and the new Intel TDX technology. Therefore, this survey covers
the architecture of these technologies and compares them on security and performance.
The Major findings are explained in the following.
While AMD SEV has problems compared to Intel SGX in security, the SEV-ES and SEV-
SNP expansions mitigate them. Furthermore, SEV performs much better than SGX on big
workloads and can run legacy code. ArmTrustZone provides a very different architecture
and is aimed at another device class. Intel TDX is very similar to SEV on the architecture
level. But there is not enough research to estimate the security and performance aspect
precisely.
All technologies have security vulnerabilities and are especially vulnerable to side-
channel attacks. Overall SEV should be used for cloud services with big workloads, while
SEV can protect smaller workloads efficiently. Trustzone should be used for small devices
and applications. The use case of TDX is also cloud computing, but it cannot be said how
good it fits this use case.