ProtectIOn: Root-of-Trust for IO in Compromised Platforms


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Date

2020-02

Publication Type

Conference Paper

ETH Bibliography

yes

Citations

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Rights / License

Abstract

Security and safety-critical remote applications such as e-voting, online banking, industrial control systems and medical devices rely upon user interaction that is typically performed through web applications. Trusted path to such remote systems is critical in the presence of an attacker that controls the computer that the user operates. Such an attacker can observe and modify any IO data without being detected by the user or the server. We investigate the security of previous research proposals and observe several drawbacks that make them vulnerable to attacks. Based on these observations we identify novel requirements for secure IO operation in the presence of a compromised host. As a solution, we propose ProtectIOn, a system that ensures IO integrity using a trusted low-TCB device that sits between the attacker-controlled host and the IO devices. ProtectIOn intercepts the display signal and user inputs from the keyboard and mouse, and overlays secure UI on top of the HDMI frames generated by the untrusted host. The guiding design principles of ProtectIOn are that (i) integrity of user input and output cannot be considered separately, (ii) all user input modalities need to be protected simultaneously, and (iii) integrity protection should not rely on error prone user tasks like checking the presence of security indicators. By following these guidelines, ProtectIOn achieves strong protection for IO integrity. We also propose an extension of ProtectIOn for IO confidentiality and implement a plug-and-play prototype and evaluate its performance.

Publication status

published

Editor

Book title

Proceedings 2020 Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS 2020)

Journal / series

Volume

2

Pages / Article No.

1377 - 1394

Publisher

Internet Society

Event

27th Annual Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS 2020)

Edition / version

Methods

Software

Geographic location

Date collected

Date created

Subject

Organisational unit

03755 - Capkun, Srdan / Capkun, Srdan check_circle

Notes

Conference lecture held on February 26, 2020.

Funding

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