Columbia Technology Ventures

Realms: An on-chip solution for data protection through secure environments

Realms: An on-chip solution for data protection through secure environments

This technology is a confidential computing architecture for private data protection from untrusted system software.

Unmet Need: Protection of sensitive private data within virtual machines

The use of sensitive private data in many applications, ranging from healthcare to advertising, has resulted in a growing concern over data privacy in computing. These applications may store data and computation on virtual machines (VMs) running on shared hardware in a cloud server, requiring ‘supervisor’ systems like hypervisors to manage and isolate VMs to protect applications and their data. However, these systems often still have access to private data within the applications or VMs, rendering them susceptible to hacking.

The Technology: Realms, secure execution environments to limit private data access

This technology, called Realms, is a confidential computing architecture (CCA) that enables the isolation of private data from privileged management systems. This technology protects in-use data by running VMs or applications in a protected execution environment, which stores the data in separate ‘realms’ that can be managed by ‘supervisor’ systems but cannot be accessed by them. Hardware is used to provide a physical address space for realms, while firmware secures realms and manages requests from untrusted system software. Realms can thus be used in various computer-based technologies to improve the security and confidentiality of sensitive application data.

Applications:

  • Data security and confidentiality tool
  • Increased banking security (ATMs)
  • Safer payment processing
  • Smart cars
  • Digital health security
  • Security for web hosting servers

Advantages:

  • Protects data from access by untrusted system software
  • Compatible with existing Arm CCA
  • Extends confidential computing to all software developers

Lead Inventor:

Jason Nieh, Ph.D.

Patent Information:

Patent Pending

Related Publications:

Tech Ventures Reference: