Attack and fix for the Trusted Platform Module
Mark Ryan, School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham
Date and time: Thursday 23rd October 2008 at 16:00
Location: UG40, School of Computer Science
The Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is a hardware chip designed to enable a level of security beyond that which can be provided by software alone. TPMs are currently fitted in high-end laptops, and are destined to feature in all devices within a few years. There are 100 million TPMs currently in existence. Application software such as Microsoft's BitLocker and HP's HP ProtectTools use the TPM in order to guarantee security properties.
I'll describe an attack on the TPM that I discovered while I was on Royal Academy of Engineering "industrial secondment" at HP. I'll also mention the method we proposed to fix it, and some ideas about verifying that the fix is correct. I'll also discuss the ideas and controversies about trusted computing, and its possible future.
The work is joint with Liqun Chen, HP Labs, Bristol.