CVTEE: A Compatible Verified TEE Architecture With Enhanced Security

• Published in: IEEE transactions on dependable and secure computing 2023-01, Vol.20 (1), p.377-391
• Main Authors: Miao, Xinliang, Chang, Rui, Zhao, Jianhong, Zhao, Yongwang, Cao, Shuang, Wei, Tao, Jiang, Liehui, Ren, Kui
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Access control; Computer architecture; Flow control; formal verification; functional specification; Information flow; Kernel; Microprogramming; Monitoring; Runtime; Security; Security management; security monitor; Theorems; Trusted execution environment
• ISSN: 1545-5971; 1941-0018
• DOI: 10.1109/TDSC.2021.3133576

Sensitive resources in Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) have suffered serious security threats in recent years. Previous protection approaches either lack a strong assurance of TEE security properties or are limited to a single platform. We propose a compatible verified TEE architecture, called CVTEE , which delegates a security monitor to manage TEE resources securely. This architecture has two key advantages: i) its functional correctness and security are guaranteed by a machine-checkable proof of security objectives of Trusted Application (TA) isolation, runtime confidentiality, and runtime integrity, and ii) it is applicable to different TEE platforms and implementation-independent due to its high level of abstraction and non-determinism of data types. Note that access control policy and information flow control policy are the core for security management of resources. After formally specifying the security attributes of TEE resources, we develop these policies based on Common Criteria (CC) in the security monitor and provide atomic interfaces. CVTEE is formally verified with 386 lemmas/theorems and \sim ∼ 10,000 LOC of Isabelle/HOL. In addition, we implement a proof of concept for the access control module of Teaclave, and prove that the constructed access control model meets the security requirements through 5 theorems.