Improve use cases

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jaseg 2021-09-28 18:16:51 +02:00
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@ -224,25 +224,27 @@ The core questions in the design of an inertial HSM are the following:
\end{enumerate}
We will approach these questions one by one in the following subsections and conclude this section with an exploration
of the practical implications that these aspects of IHSM construction have on IHSM operation.
of the practical implications that these aspects of IHSM construction have on IHSM operation, but first we will motivate
our concept with two use cases and outline our attacker model.
\subsection{Use Cases and Attacker Model}
We motivate our work on IHSM security with a number of use cases. For instance, a healthcare provider may wish to
perform advanced data analysis on a large database of patient health information. While the processing result may be
needed for the common good, accumulating large amounts of sensitive data on a single system for such processing poses a
risk. By collecting valuable data in a single computer, this computer is effectively made a target for organized
cyber-criminals and other determined attackers. Mitigations such as cryptographic protocols and firewalls are effective
for the network security side of things, but the physical hardware is difficult to secure against e.g.\ bribing of
insiders. A similar use case would be that of a bank processing customer data. Here, too, a very high level of physical
security is necessary since adversaries may include foreign secret services. Finally, consider a provider of large-scale
group communication. Right now, practical systems such as messenger apps fall back to non-end-to-end-encrypted processes
for large groups since a sufficiently lightweight, performant cryptographic solution does not exist yet. Similar to the
banking use case, such services need to consider advanced adversaries such as foreign nation states' secret services
that might attempt physical attacks to extract unencrypted messages from a message broker server.
The target application of an IHSM is high-risk data processing. This risk can be implied by either high-value data, or
by difficult physical security constraints. Our goal with IHSMs is to eventually arrive at a system that, at low-cost,
can persist against a smart, well-funded adversary such as a secret service or organized cyber-crime.
Our goal with IHSMs is to eventually arrive at a system that, at low-cost, can persist against a smart, well-funded
adversary such as a secret service or organized cyber-crime.
Consider a group of healthcare providers intending to analyze a large database of patient health information.
Accumulating potentially millions of sensitive medical records on a single system for such processing poses an inherent
risk as this system becomes a valuable target for organized cyber-criminals looking for ransom. IHSMs allow for a level
of physical security against e.g.\ a bribed insider that is as good as the level of network security afforded by modern
firewalls and cryptographic protocols.
On the other end of the spectrum, consider a real-time group video communication provider. Relaying and transcoding
video data between participants is hard to solve without trusting the server, but at the same time latency requires that
the server is physically located close to its users. Given the global history of privacy-invasive cyber-attacks by
secret services and other well-funded attackers, this may pose an issue. In this scenario, IHSMs allow for the secure
deployment of trusted server components closer to the user, or even at the network edge, where physical security is
challenging.
\subsection{Inertial HSM motion}
\label{sec_ihsm_motion}