Columbia Technology Ventures

Microverification technology for secure information transfer in hypervisors

This technology is a cybersecurity platform that includes a microverification framework that can be used to verify the functional correctness and information-flow security of a hypervisor.

Unmet Need: Secure information transfer on internet-based hypervisors

For users today, internet-based cloud platforms have become the preferred method of performing computation. However, increased reliance on internet-based cloud computing systems also comes with heightened security risks associated with web-based information transfer. Currently, cybersecurity technologies are unable to keep up with the correctness and security of complex computing systems, such as hypervisors. For hypervisors that generate complicated and extensive computing processes, there is currently no platform that can provide concurrent verification and security.

The Technology: Framework to verify concurrent hypervisors

This technology is a framework for verifying concurrent hypervisors with a microverification technique. By decomposing a system into a smaller core and a larger set of services, this technology can securely verify and propagate the guarantees to an entire system. This technology is also noninterfering and introduces logical footprints to track intermediate changes in critical processes. Concurrent verification through noninterference allows for secure, efficient, web-based, large-scale computing processes, suiting the computational needs of hypervisors and virtual machines. Importantly, this technology can potentially be applied to any large software system in order to greatly improve information reliability and security.

Applications:

  • Secure, cloud-based computing for consumers
  • National security in government supercomputers
  • Data encryption
  • Local servers

Advantages:

  • Efficient cloud-based computing with noninterfering security
  • Compatible with different operating systems
  • Applicable to large software systems
  • Allows data encryption for increased security
  • Tracks intermediate changes using logical footprints
  • Compatible with commodity hypervisors

Lead Inventor:

Jason Nieh, Ph.D.

Patent Information:

Patent Pending (US20200409740)

Related Publications:

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