PCI-based Trusted Platform Security Manager for Hardware-Assisted Anti-Tamper

The Anti-Tamper-Software Protection Initiative (AT-SPI) Technology Office is charged with preventing piracy, reverse engineering, and malicious alteration of critical national security software and data. Software protection involves developing a defense-in-depth strategy using out-of-band defenses that complement traditional in-band information assurance defenses, such as network firewalls and operating system access controls. This proposed Phase I effort describes a suggested architecture for a Trusted Platform Security Manager (TPSM) running on a coprocessor with security services. Specifically, this effort will focus on providing services that support the authentification of software files, configuration files, and other high-value files; the management of agent-based security; the management of secure communication protocols; vulnerability monitors and user files; and, and hardware fingerprinting mechanisms. This effort will collect performance benchmarks for computation-intensive applications with and without an active security system. The results will be compared to ascertain the performance costs of the security manager and conditions under which they are greatest.