Cryptographic Hardware
Another interesting application of cryptography concepts is the trusted platform module or TPM. This is a hardware device that’s typically integrated into the hardware of a computer that’s a dedicated crypto processor.
- TPMs offer secure generation of keys, random number generation, remote attestation, and data binding and sealing.
- A TPM has unique secret RSA key burned into the hardware at the time of manufacturer, which allows the TPM to perform things like hardware authentication. This can detect unauthorized hardware changes to a system.
Remote attestation is the idea of a system authenticating its software and hardware configuration to a remote system. This enables the remote system to determine the integrity of the remote system.
- This can be done using a TPM by generating a secure hash of the system configuration using the unique RSA key embedded in the TPM itself.
Secure element: It’s a tamper resistant chip often embedded in the microprocessor or integrated into the mainboard of a mobile device
Trusted execution environment (TEE): It provides a full-blown isolated execution environment that runs alongside the main OS
