Seminar: Hardware-assisted Trusted Execution Environments -- Look Back, Look Ahead

Abstract:

Over the last two decades, hardware-based isolated execution environments, commonly known as ``trusted execution environments" or TEEs, have become widely deployed. However, concerns about vulnerabilities, and potential for abuse have been persistent and have recently become increasingly pronounced. In this talk, I will discuss the history of (mobile) TEEs, what motivated their design and large-scale deployment, and how they have evolved during the last two decades. I will then discuss some of their shortcomings and potential approaches for overcoming them. I will also briefly touch on other types of hardware security primitives that are being rolled out by processor manufacturers and the opportunities they offer for securing computing.

Biography:

N. Asokan is a professor of Computer Science and Cheriton Chair at University of Waterloo. He is also an adjunct professor at Aalto University, Finland. He is broadly interested in systems security, with a particular focus on platform security. Recently he has also been interested in the security and privacy of systems based on machine learning. Prior to joining academia, Asokan had a career in industrial research first at IBM Research and then at Nokia Research Center. He is a Fellow of IEEE and ACM.