Software Protection through TPM Co-execution

This project proposes the research of an approach that leverages Trusted Platform Modules (TPM) to protect software. It utilizes the TPM as a security co-processor to the main application processor: instead of executing the software entirely on the main application processor, small fractions of the application code are executed on the TPM as secured code snippets. The strength of the approach comes from the fact that (1) the software application is securely tied to the TPM security chip through these snippets, (2) the "holes" or "voids" that the snippets create in the original binary make it very difficult to reverse engineer the overall application code, (3) the application software can be protected against unauthorized execution, and (4) the TPM snippets provide integrity checking against modifications of the binary. This project focuses on the software technologies and tools necessary for software protection and will use the BlueRISC TPM platform to show a fully functional prototype. A methodology and reference designs for adoption by third-party TPM vendors will also be completed.