Verifying COTS Authenticity & Ensuring a Secure Supply Chain through HW Root of Trust

Metalvisor is a TRL 6 Type Zero Hypervisor designed to enhance cybersecurity by creating secure, isolated computing environments. Its unique capability to operate partially in firmware on CPUs enables monitoring and protection against low-level stack attacks, such as Speculative Execution, attacks against Trusted Platform Modules (TPM), BIOS, and Baseboard Management Controllers (BMC), among others. Presently, while Metalvisor establishes a robust hardware root of trust and leverages Total Memory Encryption with Multi-Key technology to secure virtual machines (VMs), it lacks a user-visible mechanism to verify the authenticity and integrity of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) hardware components within its supply chain. Our proposal seeks SBIR funding to develop a research paper and feasibility study to outline the development of a Dashboard and/or User artifact to visually display our cryptographic verification mechanism, allowing users to confirm the authenticity and integrity of hardware; thereby, reinforcing trust in secure computing environments and the broader supply chain.