Confidential Computing
min read
Verifiable Delay Functions and Confidential Computing
In this article, we explore a new approach to Verifiable Delay Functions (VDFs) and how they can work together with Confidential Computing.
What is Confidential Computing?
Confidential Computing is a hardware-based approach that uses secure enclave technology to enable the creation of a trusted execution environment (TEE). Code and data are physically isolated in a protected region of the CPU and cannot be tampered with.
Introduction to Confidential Computing?
By running code in enclaves, confidential computing provides a level of assurance of data integrity, data confidentiality, and code integrity.
The use of these secure and isolated areas prevents unauthorized access or tampering of data and applications during processing. By providing security at the lowest layers of hardware, confidential computing helps organizations to protect their most sensitive data. With data-in-use protection, it is possible to remove the operating system and hypervisor, system administrators, service providers, and the infrastructure owner, from the list of required trusted parties, thereby reducing exposure to potential compromise at any point in the system lifecycle.
Why do we need Confidential Computing?
Confidential computing adds another layer of security, helping organizations to protect their most sensitive data.
Data integrity
Unauthorized entities cannot add, remove or modify data while in use in the TEE.
Data Confidentiality
Unauthorized entities cannot add, remove or modify data while in use in the TEE.
Code Integrity
Unauthorized entities cannot add, remove or modify data while in use in the TEE.
Today, Service Providers encrypt at-rest and in-transit, but not while data is being processed. With Confidential Computing, code runs in enclaves, protected execution environments in the CPU of the server, which no-one can access.
Concerns about privacy in an increasingly data-driven world continue to grow. Confidential Computing enables organizations to prove to their customers that they can trust them and their software by providing attestable assurances to data owners via the enclave. Because data is processed deterministically – involved parties know exactly what code is executed. This is especially important for regulated industries, and even more so as companies move their operations to the cloud, introducing even more rapidly evolving security threats.
The protection of sensitive data is paramount for organizations, particularly when being shared across internal and external datasets as a requirement to gather critical analytics.
Confidential Computing enables new opportunities for secure data collaboration. Organizations can collaborate on data with others and confidentially share across private datasets to leverage more data-driven decision-making. With Confidential Computing, businesses can improve their algorithms, by training on real data without risk to privacy, and then deploy to the cloud without revealing any data the model works on.
What are the benefits of Confidential Computing?
Trust the Cloud
Move sensitive workloads to the cloud and leverage the benefits of cloud computing.
Secure Data Collaboration
Share data across firms and departments without compromising on confidentiality.
Proof of Compliance
Confidential Computing can help solve business challenges while adhering to data sharing and use regulations.
Confidential Analytics
Work with previously inaccessible data – gain critical insights without ever exposing real data to internal or external actors.
Who can benefit from it?
Confidential Computing unlocks the power of data.
Financial Services
Mitigate digital theft, fraud, and money laundering activities.
Insurances
Collaborate with one another to enhance fraud detection systems.
NGOs
Comfortably share highly sensitive data from multiple sources.
Government
Safeguard public safety and enable inter-government data collaboration.
Healthcare
Securely share data to accelerate critical research and development.
Tech
Enable new opportunities for confidential AI and machine learning.
R3 and the Confidential Computing Consortium
R3 joined the Linux Foundation’s Confidential Computing Consortium (CCC) in 2020. The CCC's goals are to define industry-wide standards for confidential computing and to promote the development of open-source confidential computing tools.
R3 is proud to sit alongside our peers as we work together to accelerate the acceptance and adoption of Confidential Computing in the marketplace.
