Patent Description:
Various code-partitioning schemes provide a considerable number of opportunities for malicious attacks and reduce the benefits and practicality of executing these portions in a separate execution environment with a different privilege level. Large amounts of trusted code also inhibit any meaningful examination as to correctness. Furthermore, the code-partitioning schemes often require substantially manual tasks that prove to be error-prone and slow.

It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present improvements have been needed. <CIT> describes a method and system for maintaining integrity and confidentiality of pages paged to an external storage unit from a physically secure environment. <CIT> describes a client system, such as a computer or a smartphone, securely exchanging sensitive information with a remote service provider computer system such as a bank or an online retailer. <CIT> describes techniques for securely booting and executing a virtual machine (VM) image in an untrusted cloud infrastructure.

According to aspects of the present invention there is provided an article comprising at least one computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions and a method as defined in the accompanying claims.

The following presents a simplified summary in order to provide a basic understanding of some novel embodiments described herein. This summary is not an extensive overview, and it is not intended to identify key/critical elements or to delineate the scope thereof. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later.

Various embodiments are generally directed to techniques to provide secure computation in a computing environment via secure hardware abstraction. As described herein, the computing environment is controlled by a secure computation provider and may refer to a cloud-based environment or an on-premises (e.g., local) computing environment. The secure computation provider generally includes suitable secure hardware components, such as a secure processor. In an isolated memory region of the computing environment, a code package may be stored that is secure hardware-agnostic and operates with any secure computation provider. According to the various embodiments described herein, techniques that use signed data to verify the code package as being trusted code and authenticate message data originating from the isolated memory region enable secure computation by different providers. The message data generated by the code package can be used to share secrets between trusted code in the isolated memory region and remotely stored trusted code in a remote machine using various mechanisms such as those described herein and also encompassing those with similar features.

Some embodiments are particularly directed to techniques to enable access to the code package stored in the isolated memory region. The code package may implement functionality configured to execute a set of computations on data stored in external storage. Providing secure computation for the code package involves isolating part or all of the package's data and code from the untrusted code components (e.g., privileged software, such as an operating system component or a virtual machine monitor component) while maintaining a primitive programming model for communications between the isolated memory region and the untrusted code components. In general, the primitive programming model is an abstraction of underlying (secure) hardware that still provides secure computation over stored data. Secure computation may be enhanced by establishing one or more secure communication channels between the isolated code package and one or more remote trusted components running on remote machines. Because the isolated code package operates independently from underlying hardware, software and/or firmware, the various embodiments described herein can be implemented in any hardware configuration.

In one embodiment, for example, an apparatus may comprise logic operative on a logic circuit to configure an isolated memory region in a computing environment for secure communications with code running outside of the isolated memory region, generate signed data using an attestation key that corresponds to the computing environment, the signed data comprising a secured encryption key and a signature to authenticate the secured encryption key, and communicate the signed data to a remote trusted component to access secret code stored in the isolated memory region. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

To the accomplishment of the foregoing and related ends, certain illustrative aspects are described herein in connection with the following description and the annexed drawings. These aspects are indicative of the various ways in which the principles disclosed herein can be practiced and all aspects and equivalents thereof are intended to be within the scope of the claimed subject matter. Other advantages and novel features will become apparent from the following detailed description when considered in conjunction with the drawings.

Various embodiments are directed to an application programming interface (API) component in a computing environment that is operative to isolate trusted code from untrusted code in the computing environment and secure data generated by that trusted code when such data is being processed by the untrusted code. The API component, in general, provides a secure hardware abstraction layer by implementing a primitive programming model through which the untrusted code and the trusted code establish a secure connection or communication channel. Both untrusted code and trusted code can use primitive functions of the primitive programming model to generate and manage an isolated environment. Via the primitive programming model, the trusted code implements an encryption protocol for securing network data traffic between the isolated environment and the untrusted code.

As described herein, the isolated environment may include various computer code and data stored in an isolated memory region of a computing device's memory. In some embodiments, the primitive programming model of the API component is used by the untrusted code to configure the isolated memory region with secure communication channels to code that is executable in memory region that is different from the isolated memory region, including privileged code components running outside of the isolated memory region. The primitive programming model may enable, among others, secure communication of the data to the untrusted code for processing by one of the untrusted code's functions, for storage in external storage, and/or for transmission to a remote machine over a network. The primitive programming model implemented by the API component may also enable additional management functions, such as file system operations, threading, synchronization, memory allocation and/or the like. In some embodiments, computation data is communicated with a signature (or another authentication code) to a remote machine and is secured with an encryption key that is generated through the primitive programming model. The signature ensures the integrity of the encryption key and verifies to the remote machine that the computer code in the isolated memory region has not been compromised or corrupted.

Application development frameworks (e.g., secure Hadoop) partition their data and code such that a portion is isolated from privileged software (e.g., the operating system) but require compatibility with underlying hardware within the computing environment. The primitive programming model of the API component provides interoperability with any underlying hardware. In some embodiments, the API component implements functions that produce communication primitives to communicate data securely. Although some of these communication primitives may incorporate or resemble known inter-process communication primitives, the embodiments envisioned by the present disclosure are not restricted to any particular construct. The API component implements a minimal number of functions to achieve secure computation and secure communication while limiting access to the isolated memory region only to code in that region. Hence, even if the privileged software is compromised or operated by a malicious administrator, the attackers cannot access the data and code in the isolated memory region.

As a result, the embodiments can improve affordability, scalability, modularity, extendibility, or interoperability for an operator, device or network.

We describe how the untrusted code in the cloud creates an isolated region with some code provided by the user, and how the trusted code inside the isolated region communicates with the code outside. We also describe how the trusted code in a remote machine can establish a secure channel with the trusted code inside the isolated region.

With general reference to notations and nomenclature used herein, the detailed descriptions which follow may be presented in terms of program procedures executed on a computer or network of computers. These procedural descriptions and representations are used by those skilled in the art to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art.

A procedure is here, and generally, conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of operations leading to a desired result. These operations are those requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical, magnetic or optical signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It proves convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, to refer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers, or the like. It should be noted, however, that all of these and similar terms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to those quantities.

Further, the manipulations performed are often referred to in terms, such as adding or comparing, which are commonly associated with mental operations performed by a human operator. No such capability of a human operator is necessary, or desirable in most cases, in any of the operations described herein which form part of one or more embodiments. Rather, the operations are machine operations. Useful machines for performing operations of various embodiments include general purpose digital computers or similar devices.

Various embodiments also relate to apparatus or systems for performing these operations. This apparatus may be specially constructed for the required purpose or it may comprise a general purpose computer as selectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored in the computer. The procedures presented herein are not inherently related to a particular computer or other apparatus. Various general purpose machines may be used with programs written in accordance with the teachings herein, or it may prove convenient to construct more specialized apparatus to perform the required method steps. The required structure for a variety of these machines will appear from the description given.

Reference is now made to the drawings, wherein like reference numerals are used to refer to like elements throughout. It may be evident, however, that the novel embodiments can be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well known structures and devices are shown in block diagram form in order to facilitate a description thereof. The intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives consistent with the claimed subject matter.

<FIG> illustrates a block diagram for a system <NUM>. In one embodiment, the system <NUM> may comprise a computer-implemented system <NUM> having a secure computation provider <NUM> and one or more components <NUM>-a. Although the system <NUM> shown in <FIG> has a limited number of elements in a certain topology, it may be appreciated that the system <NUM> may include more or less elements in alternate topologies as desired for a given implementation.

It is worthy to note that "a" and "b" and "c" and similar designators as used herein are intended to be variables representing any positive integer. Thus, for example, if an implementation sets a value for a = <NUM>, then a complete set of components <NUM>-a may include components <NUM>-<NUM>, <NUM>-<NUM>, <NUM>-<NUM>, and <NUM>-<NUM>.

The system <NUM> may comprise a secure computation provider <NUM> that is in control over a computing environment. The secure computation provider <NUM> may be generally arranged to provide computing services to a number of computing devices in operation locally or remotely. One example of the computing environment includes configurations of processing resources and storage resources in the form of virtual machines that run various applications. One physical computer may be abstracted into several virtual machines and, alternatively, two or more physical computing devices may allocate processing power and/or storage space towards a executing a processing job on a computing framework, for example, to perform a large set of parallel computations on a large dataset.

Various embodiments describes herein refer to an application programming interface (API) component <NUM>-<NUM> operative to generate a primitive programming service comprising a number of primitive functions. The primitive functions may represent a minimum number of primitives suitable to support different secure computation providers and facilitate interactions with each provider's functionality. The API component <NUM>-<NUM> may be further operative to provide access to this primitive programming service, for example, for trusted code components within an isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM>. Via the API component <NUM>-<NUM>, trusted code running within the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM> may execute a key exchange protocol with a remote trusted component running on a remote machine.

One feature of the key exchange protocol is an attestation key <NUM>-<NUM>, which may be private to the secure computation provider <NUM>, for authenticating data communicated out of the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM>. The attestation key <NUM>-<NUM> may correspond specifically to the secure computation provider <NUM>; therefore, using this key to produce a digital signature for some data ensures that data's integrity when transmitted out of the computing environment controlled by the secure computation provider <NUM>. The data can be verified using a public key that corresponds to the attestation key <NUM>-<NUM>. Because the remote trusted component can confirm the authenticity of the data, the secure computation provider <NUM> can ensure that the data has not been compromised while being outside of the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM>.

The combined aspects of the digital signature from the attestation key <NUM>-<NUM> and a secured encryption key from the API component <NUM>-<NUM> provides additional data confidentiality and integrity for data communicated between the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM> and any trusted component outside of that region. In an embodiment where that trusted component includes remotely stored code, because the secured encryption key is encrypted through a scheme known to that code, it is unlikely that the encryption key has been compromised. Thus, the remotely stored code can be assured that communications with the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM> are secure.

Untrusted code <NUM>-<NUM>, according to one embodiment, is executed in a memory region outside of the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM> and communicates with that region through the API component <NUM>-<NUM>. Once the key exchange protocol has been completed successfully, application code may run a set of computations on stored data, for example, in parallel with other trusted components. The application code running in the isolated memory region may use I/O control codes to instruct the untrusted code <NUM>-<NUM> to perform various computing tasks. Thus, the API component <NUM>-<NUM> provides secure communications between code running in the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM> and components running in memory regions outside of the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM>. These components may include remotely stored code on a remote machine or the untrusted code <NUM>-<NUM>.

The untrusted code <NUM>-<NUM> may create an isolated environment within storage memory and configure this isolated environment with computer code and/or data. To illustrate by way of example, the API component <NUM>-<NUM> implements the following function IsolatedRegionCreate() which when invoked, creates the isolated environment and loads a computer code package specified by a packagePath argument into that environment:
<IMG>.

In the above example, the isolationProvider identifies the underlying provider of secure computation services, e.g., VSM. The packagePath argument may refer to file data in a global or cloud file system instead of a local file system. The callOutHandler identifies a function in the untrusted code that can handle IO control codes sent from inside the region. The package is a container of code (e.g., trusted application code) and data. One example package is a mobile application package that is downloadable from a mobile application platform. The package also includes configuration parameters such as the size of the region.

The untrusted code <NUM>-<NUM> may invoke code in the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM>. One way to achieve this is to send an Input/Output (IO) control code (e.g., an IOCTL code) to the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM>:
<IMG>
<IMG>.

The region argument defines an address or location of the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM>. The callInID argument identifies a function in the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM> that is configured to handle control codes (or other communication primitives) from the untrusted code <NUM>-<NUM>. The callInID argument may be supplied by information accompanying the code package. The inputBuffer and outputBuffer arguments are memory buffers that store the control codes and returned results, respectively. Finally, the untrusted code <NUM>-<NUM> can destroy the isolated memory region, for example, by calling the following function:
VOID IsolatedRegionClose(_In_ HANDLE region).

As noted herein, the functions implemented by the API component <NUM>-<NUM> may be extended to perform additional tasks, such as memory management functions. As an example, VirtualAlloc () and VirtualFree () could be implement inside the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM> to dynamically allocate/free virtual memory.

<FIG> illustrates an embodiment of an operational environment <NUM> for the system <NUM>. As shown in <FIG>, the API component <NUM>-<NUM> receives control directives, such as communication primitives, from the trusted code <NUM> running within an isolated memory region <NUM>. Some control directives instruct the API component <NUM>-<NUM> to communicate the signed data <NUM> to a remote machine. A remote trusted component <NUM> running on the remote machine may execute a verification process on the signed data <NUM>-<NUM> to determine whether such data has been misappropriated and/or to protect the remote machine from malicious activity.

According to one example embodiment, the trusted code <NUM> and the remote trusted component <NUM> engage in a key exchange protocol through which one or more encryption keys are securely communicated through untrusted code. One example implementation of the trusted code <NUM> invokes a communication primitive via a function call to instruct the API component <NUM>-<NUM> to generate an encryption key. The trusted code <NUM> secures the encryption key, for example, by encrypting the encryption key with a public key of the remote trusted component <NUM>. The trusted code <NUM> invokes another primitive function to request a signature for the secured encryption key, which is then stored in the signed data <NUM>. It is appreciated that numerous alternative key exchange protocols may be implemented. As one alternative, for instance, the trusted code <NUM> may use another encryption scheme.

In one embodiment, the remote trusted component <NUM> encrypts code (e.g., a library of functions) and data and binds them into a code package <NUM>. Encryption keys used to generate the encrypted code package <NUM> are referred to as user keys <NUM>. A portion of the code package <NUM> may be public code and can be stored in the trusted code <NUM>. Another portion may include supporting code files and also can be stored in the trusted code. Another portion may remain secure as secret code <NUM> in the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM> until a secure communication channel has been established. In some embodiments, the code package <NUM> includes metadata to identify function or functions that handle communication primitives (e.g., I/O codes) from code executed in a memory region other than the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM>. Each function definition in the metadata enables instant communication and control over application functionality for untrusted code.

In one embodiment, the remote trusted component <NUM> uses the encryption key to secure the user keys <NUM>, which are encryption keys that initially encrypted the secret code <NUM> prior to that secret code <NUM> being transferring to the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM>. As described herein with respect to <FIG>, the secret code <NUM> may constitute as part of a computer code package <NUM> that can be installed in the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM> to perform secure computation on data stored in external storage. According to one embodiment, the secret code <NUM> includes parallel processing jobs (e.g., Map and Reduce functions) to be performed on a substantial data set for a considerable number of client computing devices.

The trusted component <NUM> receives the user keys <NUM> and decrypts the secret code <NUM> to access parallel processing job information that defines a set of computations to be performed on stored data. The secret code <NUM> distributes the parallel processing jobs amongst one or more resources within the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM> to generate computation data, which is secured using the encryption key generated during the key exchange protocol. The trusted component <NUM> requests a signature for the secured computation data and both the signature and the secured computation data are communicated as signed data <NUM> to the remote trusted component <NUM>. Using one or more communication primitives (e.g., I/O control codes), the trusted code <NUM> generate a message to store the signed data <NUM> and writes the message to a memory buffer for communication to the API component <NUM>-<NUM>. It is appreciated that the message contents can be used to establish shared secret data between the trusted code <NUM> and the remote trusted component <NUM> in a variety of ways (e.g., Diffie-Hellman key exchange). The embodiments described herein support several of these secure channel establishment mechanisms and provide a mechanism to select a particular mechanism.

The remote trusted component <NUM>, in turn, uses the API component <NUM>-<NUM> to verify the message contents' integrity and confidentiality. One example implementation determines whether the signature is produced from a private attestation key corresponding to the secure computation provider <NUM> of the computing environment (e.g., instead of a malicious provider) and whether the message content was generated by the trusted code <NUM>. Another example implementation determines whether the secured computation data is produced from the secret code <NUM> (e.g., instead of a compromised code package). Using one or more communication primitives (e.g., I/O control codes), the trusted component <NUM> writes the signed data <NUM> to and/or reads data to a memory buffer that is communicated to the API component <NUM>-<NUM>.

The signed data <NUM> may include a signature or another authentication code generated from the secure computation provider's attestation key. In some embodiments, this key may be a private key under a public key cryptography scheme and correspond specifically to the associated secure computation provider. In some embodiments, the signed data further includes an encryption key that is unknown to untrusted code components in operation at the secure computation provider. Because the encryption key is secured from the untrusted components, the key may be communicated to code running outsider of an isolated memory region without being compromised. If that code is running on a remote machine, the code can verify the key by examining the signature to determine whether the key was compromised while outside of the isolated memory region. The signed data <NUM>, hence, verifies the key's integrity and confidentiality to the remote machine's system.

<FIG> illustrates an embodiment of an operating environment <NUM> for an isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM> with a support region for a support component <NUM>. In this embodiment, the trusted code <NUM> operates with the support component <NUM> to achieve secure computation for data stored in external storage.

To illustrate by way of example, the secure computation provider <NUM> may operate a cloud computing environment where each machine creates a support region <NUM> in memory that is isolated from untrusted code running elsewhere on the machine. Using the API component <NUM>-<NUM>, for instance, the untrusted code may create the support region <NUM> with IsolatedRegionCreate () and loads that region with the support component <NUM>. The support component <NUM> implements one or more management functions that allow the remote trusted component <NUM> to send private computer code securely to the cloud computing environment for storage in the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM>. The code for implementing the support component <NUM> is trivial and can be made public.

The untrusted code invokes functions in the support component <NUM> through IsolatedRegionIOControl () function calls, as described herein. The support component <NUM> generates a public-private encryption key pair in accordance with an encryption scheme that not known to another code component. This public-private encryption key pair may be specific to processing resources that have been allocated to isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM>. The support component <NUM> invokes a primitive function on the API component <NUM>-<NUM> to generate a sealing key for encrypting the private key. The support component <NUM> invokes another primitive function to generate a signature for the public key. Using the signature and the secured private encryption key, the support component <NUM> engages in a key exchange protocol with the remote machine.

To illustrate by way of an example, consider that the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM> is depicted in <FIG> as having the secret code <NUM>, which is secured computer code for performing a set of computations on stored data. Functions within the secret code <NUM> may be encrypted with a secret key known to the remote trusted component <NUM>. After the API component <NUM>-<NUM> verifies the attestation of the public key mentioned above, the remote trusted component <NUM> encrypts the secret key for the secret code <NUM> with the public key. Hence, this secret key may be known as a user key, similar to the user keys <NUM> of <FIG>.

To secure communications between the support region <NUM> and the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM> (the support component <NUM> in this instance constituting as code running outside of the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM>), the support component <NUM> and the trusted code <NUM> initiate a key exchange protocol such that the trusted code <NUM> receives the secret key for decrypting the secret code <NUM> and the support component <NUM> receives a private key for securing the secret key and possibly other communications in the future. Once decrypted, functions of the secret code <NUM> are incorporated into the trusted code <NUM> and the private key may be used by those functions to secure data (e.g., encryption value-pairs) written to or read from the untrusted code.

<FIG> illustrates an embodiment of a key exchange protocol <NUM> between the trusted component <NUM> and the remote trusted component <NUM>.

As described herein, untrusted code running in the computing environment <NUM> invokes a function on the API component <NUM>-<NUM> to create an isolated memory region and load computer code into that region. Executing that computer code generates the trusted component <NUM> and initiates the key exchange protocol <NUM>. One example implementation of the API component <NUM>-<NUM> loads the package into the isolated memory region and sends the trusted component <NUM> a public key for the remote trusted component. The API component <NUM>-<NUM> may store the public key in a memory buffer of a message that is communicated to the trusted component <NUM> to initiate setup process <NUM>. The public key may be specific to a particular remote machine. The message also includes configuration parameters such as the size of the region.

To commence the setup process <NUM>, the trusted component <NUM> may invoke a primitive function call <NUM> and in response, the API component <NUM>-<NUM> generates and returns an encryption key to secure communications between the trusted component <NUM> and the remote trusted component <NUM>. These keys allow the trusted code to encrypt data, save it in external storage, and then decrypt it in a subsequent execution.

In the below example implementation of the primitive function <NUM>, a function call to IsolatedAppGetKey requests a key corresponding to KeyID with parameters keyBufferBytesRequired and keyBufferBytes in buffer keyBuffer:
BOOL
IsolatedAppGetKey(
_In_ KeyId keyId,
_Out_writes_bytes_to_(keyBufferBytes,
*keyBufferBytesRequired) LPVOID keyBuffer,
_In_ SIZE T keyBufferBytes,
_Always_(_Out_) PSIZE_T keyBufferBytesRequired).

In another operation, the trusted component <NUM> may secure the encryption key with the public key and invoke a primitive function <NUM> and in response, the API component <NUM> generates and returns a digital signature of the secured encryption key. In yet another operation, the trusted component <NUM> may invoke a primitive function <NUM> to write the digital signature and the secured encryption key into a memory buffer and communicate a message to the API component <NUM>-<NUM>. In response, the API component <NUM>-<NUM> sends the message to the remote trusted component <NUM>.

In the below example implementation of the primitive function <NUM>, a function call to IsolatedAppSignMessage instructs the API component to generate the digital signature for the message contents and store the digital signature in the outputBuffer.

The remote trusted component <NUM> may read data from the memory buffer and extract the digital signature and the secured encryption key. In one operation, the remote trusted component invokes a primitive function <NUM> to generate a cryptographic digest of a true copy of the package. In another operation, the remote trusted component <NUM> invokes a primitive function <NUM> to determine whether the digital signature was generated by the package with the cryptographic digest. The API component <NUM>-<NUM> may send a verification result indicating either that the data in the memory buffer is secure or that the data has been misappropriated or, at least, incorrect.

In the below example implementation of the primitive function <NUM>, a function call to IsolatedAppIoControl communicates an IO control code in inputBuffer and the API component <NUM>-<NUM> performs the IO control code and returns a result in outputBuffer:
<IMG>
<IMG>.

The trusted code <NUM> invokes the above primitive function to instruct the API component <NUM>-<NUM> to communicate the message in the memory buffer inputBuffer to the remote trusted component.

One example mechanism to establish a secure communication channel operates these functions to verify that the message originated from trusted code <NUM> in the isolated memory region:
<IMG>.

The IsolatedRegionGetDigest() function returns a cryptographic digest that deterministically identifies a code package located at an address denoted in packagePath in a local file system or global or cloud-based file system. This code package may denote a clean or uncorrupted version of an application. The cryptographic digest can be passed as the regionDigest argument to the primitive function IsolatedRegionCheckSignature() along with an identifier for the secure computation provider <NUM>. This function returns Boolean value "true" if the message in the buffer was produced by code on an isolated region that is created by the secure computation provider. For example, this function may authenticate the signature using a public attestation key corresponding to the secure computation provider <NUM> to confirm that the message contents were not compromised. As another example, this function may verify that code running inside the isolated memory region has not been compromised by comparing the above cryptographic digest to a digest produced for such code and a match indicates an unaltered copy of the code package. However, a mismatch indicates that the code inside the isolated memory region is not the same as the clean version. Hence, the contents of the signed/attested message can be used to share secret data between the trusted code <NUM> and the remote trusted component <NUM> in a variety of ways (e.g., Diffie-Hellman key exchange). The embodiments described herein support several of these secure channel establishment mechanisms and let users choose which one to use.

The following description applies to one or more example embodiments that implement a support component, such as the support component <NUM> of <FIG>, in addition to the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM>. The support component invokes primitive function IsolatedAppGetKey() on the API component <NUM>-<NUM> to generate an encryption key for use as a sealing key to encrypt the processor private key. The support component may invoke primitive function IsolatedAppSignMessage () to sign the processor public key and then, publish the key.

As users develop application code (e.g., map and reduce functions), the remote trusted component compiles and encrypts the application code with a secret key and binds the encrypted application code with public code to produce a code package (e.g., a code library such as a Dynamic Link Library (DLL) file). The remote trusted component <NUM> may verify the attestation of the processor public key using function IsolatedRegionCheckSignature () and then, encrypt the secret key that was used to encrypt the application code with the processor public key.

The untrusted code in the cloud computing environment loads the code package into an isolated memory region with function IsolatedRegionCreate (), and uses function IsolatedRegionIOControl () to instruct the public code to generate a new random symmetric key to establish a secure communication channel with the isolated memory region. The new key for the region is encrypted with the processor public key and the user region gets a signature by invoking function IsolatedAppSignMessage (). The encrypted new key is then sent to the support region. The support region verifies the signature with IsolatedRegionCheckSignature (), and decrypts the encrypted new key. The support region then decrypts the secret key for the application code (which was encrypted with the processor public key), encrypts that secret key with the new key from the isolated memory region and sends the encrypted secret key to the isolated memory region. Trusted code running within that region decrypts the secret key and decrypts the application code and then, invokes functions in the application code by calling function IsolatedRegionIOControl () to communicate a primitive IO control code (or another control directive) to a handler for processing IO control codes directed towards the application code. The trusted code prepares secure computation data for external storage by directing IO control codes to a particular handler in the untrusted code. For example, the trusted code invokes function IsolatedAppIOControl () to direct a IO control code to the untrusted code's handler to instruct that handler to read encrypted key-value pairs; and after performing computations on those pairs, the trusted code invokes function IsolatedAppIOControl () to direct a IO control code to the untrusted code's handler to instruct that handler to write the encrypted key-value pairs.

<FIG> illustrates an embodiment of a secure communication channel <NUM> between the trusted code <NUM> and the remote trusted component <NUM>. When application code running in the isolated memory region is executing a set of computations for a parallel processing job, the trusted code <NUM> invokes a primitive function <NUM> to read data (e.g., an encryption value-pair) from untrusted code <NUM>-<NUM>. The untrusted code <NUM>-<NUM> to return encryption value-pairs. The trusted code <NUM> may invoke this function and perform one or more computations on the encryption-value pairs. In another operation, the trusted code <NUM> invokes a primitive function to write encryption-value pairs to external storage and the untrusted code <NUM>-<NUM> returns an acknowledgment when completed.

To send these pairs to remote trusted component, the trusted code <NUM> invokes the primitive function <NUM> to process a digital signature for authenticating the encryption-value pairs. To send a message with the digital signature and the encryption-value pairs, the trusted code <NUM> invokes the primitive function <NUM> to communicate the message to the remote trusted component. Prior to decrypting the secure computation data, the remote trusted component invokes the primitive function <NUM> to verify the digital signature.

<FIG> illustrates an embodiment of an isolated environment <NUM> for trusted code and data in the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM>. Application code <NUM> may be secret code in encrypted form. Public code <NUM> includes an interface for the application code <NUM> to use for executing a set of computations on stored data to produce computation data <NUM>. The application code <NUM> may use the public code <NUM> to secure the computation data <NUM> with an encryption key <NUM> and communicate the secured computation data <NUM> to untrusted code outside of the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM>. The public code <NUM> may also communicate a signature <NUM> to code executed in a memory region different from the isolated memory <NUM>-<NUM> by requesting the signature <NUM> from an API component and communicating that signature <NUM> in a memory buffer of a message. As described herein, the code executed in the different memory region may refer to untrusted code running in a cloud computing environment or remotely stored coded executed by a remote machine.

In some embodiments, the public code <NUM> may leverage metadata <NUM> to identify a memory region of the application code <NUM> comprising one or more functions that are configured to handle control directives (e.g., communication primitives, such as I/O control codes) from untrusted code running outside of the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM>. Via an application programming interface (API) component such as those described herein, the untrusted code may invoke primitive functions to communicate the control directives to call some of these functions. Hence, the metadata <NUM> enables access to the complex functionality implemented by the application code <NUM> through (e.g., lower-level) inter-process communication primitives.

<FIG> illustrates an embodiment of a computing environment <NUM> for a secure computation provider <NUM>. The secure computation provider <NUM> depicts an alternative to the secure computation provider <NUM> of <FIG>. In this embodiment, the support component <NUM> of <FIG> has access to application code running in a processing unit. It is appreciated that the computing environment <NUM> represents one alternative to the system <NUM> of <FIG> and other alternatives and modifications are envisioned in this disclosure.

The secure computation provider <NUM> in control of the computing environment <NUM> includes a processor circuit <NUM> and an isolated memory region <NUM>, which further comprises the support component <NUM> and processor keys <NUM>. The isolated memory region <NUM> may be configured similar to the isolated memory region <NUM>-<NUM> of <FIG>. The application code <NUM> is executing a set of computations on data using the processor circuit <NUM>. As described herein, the support component <NUM> generates one or more processor keys <NUM> to secure computations at a processing unit-level. Hence, the secured computation data <NUM> may be decrypted/encrypted quickly, enhancing computation throughput with little or no security risk.

<FIG> illustrates a block diagram of a centralized system <NUM>. The centralized system <NUM> may implement some or all of the structure and/or operations for the system <NUM> in a single computing entity, such as entirely within a single device <NUM>.

The device <NUM> may comprise any electronic device capable of receiving, processing, and sending information for the system <NUM>. Examples of an electronic device may include without limitation an ultra-mobile device, a mobile device, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile computing device, a smart phone, a telephone, a digital telephone, a cellular telephone, ebook readers, a handset, a one-way pager, a two-way pager, a messaging device, a computer, a personal computer (PC), a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a notebook computer, a netbook computer, a handheld computer, a tablet computer, a server, a server array or server farm, a web server, a network server, an Internet server, a work station, a mini-computer, a main frame computer, a supercomputer, a network appliance, a web appliance, a distributed computing system, multiprocessor systems, processor-based systems, consumer electronics, programmable consumer electronics, game devices, television, digital television, set top box, wireless access point, base station, subscriber station, mobile subscriber center, radio network controller, router, hub, gateway, bridge, switch, machine, or combination thereof.

The device <NUM> may execute processing operations or logic for the system <NUM> using a processing component <NUM>. The processing component <NUM> may comprise various hardware elements, software elements, or a combination of both. Examples of hardware elements may include devices, logic devices, components, processors, microprocessors, circuits, processor circuits, circuit elements (e.g., transistors, resistors, capacitors, inductors, and so forth), integrated circuits, application specific integrated circuits (ASIC), programmable logic devices (PLD), digital signal processors (DSP), field programmable gate array (FPGA), Application-specific Standard Products (ASSPs), System-on-a-chip systems (SOCs), Complex Programmable Logic Devices (CPLDs), memory units, logic gates, registers, semiconductor device, chips, microchips, chip sets, and so forth. Examples of software elements may include software components, programs, applications, computer programs, application programs, system programs, software development programs, machine programs, operating system software, middleware, firmware, software modules, routines, subroutines, functions, methods, procedures, software interfaces, application program interfaces (API), instruction sets, computing code, computer code, code segments, computer code segments, words, values, symbols, or any combination thereof. Determining whether an embodiment is implemented using hardware elements and/or software elements may vary in accordance with any number of factors, such as desired computational rate, power levels, heat tolerances, processing cycle budget, input data rates, output data rates, memory resources, data bus speeds and other design or performance constraints, as desired for a given implementation.

The device <NUM> may execute communications operations or logic for the system <NUM> using communications component <NUM>. The communications component <NUM> may implement any well-known communications techniques and protocols, such as techniques suitable for use with packet-switched networks (e.g., public networks such as the Internet, private networks such as an enterprise intranet, and so forth), circuit-switched networks (e.g., the public switched telephone network), or a combination of packet-switched networks and circuit-switched networks (with suitable gateways and translators). The communications component <NUM> may include various types of standard communication elements, such as one or more communications interfaces, network interfaces, network interface cards (NIC), radios, wireless transmitters/receivers (transceivers), wired and/or wireless communication media, physical connectors, and so forth. By way of example, and not limitation, communication media <NUM>, <NUM> include wired communications media and wireless communications media. Examples of wired communications media may include a wire, cable, metal leads, printed circuit boards (PCB), backplanes, switch fabrics, semiconductor material, twisted-pair wire, co-axial cable, fiber optics, a propagated signal, and so forth. Examples of wireless communications media may include acoustic, radio-frequency (RF) spectrum, infrared and other wireless media.

The device <NUM> may communicate with other devices <NUM>, <NUM> over a communications media <NUM>, <NUM>, respectively, using communications signals <NUM>, <NUM>, respectively, via the communications component <NUM>. The devices <NUM>, <NUM> may be internal or external to the device <NUM> as desired for a given implementation.

As described herein, a trusted component running on a remote machine desires a secure communication channel with application code running in an isolated memory region of the computing environment of <FIG>. An API component of a secure computation provider may establish secure communication channels with the isolated memory region via the primitive programming model. Using function calls that invoke communication primitives, the untrusted code and the trusted code establish a secure connection or communication channel by implementing an encryption protocol for securing network data traffic, such as a Transport Layer Security (TLS), Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and/or the like.

Included herein is a set of flow charts representative of exemplary methodologies for performing novel aspects of the disclosed architecture. While, for purposes of simplicity of explanation, the one or more methodologies shown herein, for example, in the form of a flow chart or flow diagram, are shown and described as a series of acts, it is to be understood and appreciated that the methodologies are not limited by the order of acts, as some acts may, in accordance therewith, occur in a different order and/or concurrently with other acts from that shown and described herein. For example, those skilled in the art will understand and appreciate that a methodology could alternatively be represented as a series of interrelated states or events, such as in a state diagram. Moreover, not all acts illustrated in a methodology may be required for a novel implementation.

<FIG> illustrates an embodiment of a logic flow <NUM> for the system of <FIG>. The logic flow <NUM> may be representative of some or all of the operations executed by one or more embodiments described herein. In the illustrated embodiment shown in <FIG>, the logic flow <NUM> may be executed by the API component <NUM>-<NUM> of <FIG> to establish a secure communication channel between trusted code and code running outside of an isolated memory region at block <NUM>.

For example, the logic flow <NUM> may generate the isolated memory region in a computing environment and a store a code package in that region at block <NUM> when untrusted code in the computing environment invokes a primitive function to configure the isolated memory region according to certain parameters (e.g., size). The logic flow <NUM> may generate a signature using a private attestation key that corresponds specifically the secure computation provider <NUM> that is in control over the computing environment.

The logic flow <NUM> may execute a verification process at block <NUM> during which the code package is authenticated to a remote trusted component running in a remote machine. The logic flow <NUM> may execute the verification process to complete a key exchange protocol such that the trusted code provides the remote trusted component with an encryption key secured with a public key and a signature to authenticate the encryption key. For example, the public key may correspond to credentials corresponding to the remote machine that has requested computing services. In response, the remote trusted component returns data on how to access the code package, for example, by securing a user key using the encryption key and communicated the secured user key to the trusted code via a function call to the API component. The function call may result in the communication of a control code to the trusted code, which prompts that code to read the secured user key, decrypt the user key and then, decrypt secret code in the code package to access the code package's functionality.

For instance, the API component and the untrusted code may instruct trusted code in the isolated memory region to initiate a setup process for the key exchange protocol. The API component may generate and communicate the encryption key to the isolated memory region. After the trusted code secures the encryption key, the trusted code requests the API component to generate a signature using a private key corresponding to a secure computation provider in control over the computing environment. The API component communicates a message comprising the signature to a remote trusted component running on a remote machine. After the key exchange protocol, the API component executes the verification process on the message to extract the message's contents and determine how to access the code package. If successful, the verification process proves that the signed/attested message originated from trusted code in the isolated memory region. The API component may communicate the secured user keys to the trusted code running in the isolated memory region. The API component may generate a cryptographic digest for a clean code package and perform a comparison between that digest to the cryptographic digest of the code package that originated the message.

The logic flow <NUM> may proceed to communicate a verification result, at block <NUM>, to the remote trusted component running on the remote machine. The logic flow at block <NUM> completes the establishment of the secure communication channel to the isolated memory region and code running in that region. For at least this reason, the logic flow <NUM> may proceed to performing to higher-level computations. These computations involve more complex control directives than inter-process communication primitives (e.g., IO control codes). To illustrates, as one option, the logic flow may proceed to block <NUM> and store secured data (e.g., encryption value-pairs) in a cloud file system where external storage appears as one file system. As another option, the logic flow <NUM> may communicate IO control codes to the untrusted code and invoke a function (e.g., a hardware driver function). The embodiments are not limited to this example.

<FIG> illustrates one embodiment of a logic flow <NUM>. The logic flow <NUM> may be representative of some or all of the operations executed by one or more embodiments described herein.

In the illustrated embodiment shown in <FIG>, the logic flow <NUM> may process user keys and decrypt a secret code package stored in an isolated memory region at block <NUM>. Map and reduce functions in the decrypted code package, i.e., now trusted code, may define a set of computations. The logic flow <NUM> may run the map and reduce functions to execute the set of computations on stored data and generate computation data at block <NUM>. The logic flow <NUM> may secure the computation data using an encryption key that is unknown to untrusted code running outside of the isolated memory region. The logic flow <NUM> may invoke a primitive function to generate a signature for the secure computation data at block <NUM>. The logic flow <NUM> invokes, at block <NUM>, a communication primitive operative to write the secure computation data to the untrusted code. For example, the logic flow <NUM> may instruct the untrusted code to store the secure computation data in external storage. The embodiments are not limited to this example.

<FIG> illustrates an embodiment of a logic flow for the remote trusted component of <FIG>. The logic flow <NUM> may be representative of some or all of the operations executed by one or more embodiments described herein.

In the illustrated embodiment shown in <FIG>, the logic flow <NUM> commences at block <NUM> where the logic flow <NUM> encrypts a code package and communicates the encrypted code package to a computing environment along with a public key. The logic flow <NUM> may process a signed/attested message at block <NUM> and extract signed data from a memory buffer in that message. The logic flow <NUM> initiates a process at block <NUM> to verify that the signed data originated from the secret code package and thus, has not been tampered or compromised. If verified, the contents of the signed/attested message can be used to share secret data between the trusted code in an isolated environment and the remote trusted component in a remote machine in a variety of ways (e.g., Diffie-Hellman key exchange). The embodiments described herein support several of these secure channel establishment mechanisms and let users choose which one to use.

The logic flow <NUM> may perform a determination as to whether the signed data has been compromised at block <NUM> and either reject a connection with the isolated environment at block <NUM> or accept the connection at block <NUM>. Numerous example embodiments for a verification process are described herein and any of these examples can be used to render such a determination. If, for instance, the signed data cannot be verified with a public attestation key for the secure computation provider, it would appear that the message contents have be tainted. As another example, if the secret code package's cryptographic digest does not match the digest of the version stored at the remote machine, the code package may have been altered indicating the isolated environment have be compromised. If the logic flow <NUM> determines that the signed data is secure, the logic flow <NUM> may decrypt an encryption key stored in the message and secure user keys for communication to the trusted code at block <NUM>. As described herein, the user keys include encryption keys for decrypting the secret code package. The embodiments are not limited to this example.

<FIG> illustrates an embodiment of an exemplary computing architecture <NUM> suitable for implementing various embodiments as previously described. In one embodiment, the computing architecture <NUM> may comprise or be implemented as part of an electronic device. Examples of an electronic device may include those described with reference to <FIG>, among others.

As used in this application, the terms "system" and "component" are intended to refer to a computer-related entity, either hardware, a combination of hardware and software, software, or software in execution, examples of which are provided by the exemplary computing architecture <NUM>. For example, a component can be, but is not limited to being, a process running on a processor, a processor, a hard disk drive, multiple storage drives (of optical and/or magnetic storage medium), an object, an executable, a thread of execution, a program, and/or a computer. By way of illustration, both an application running on a server and the server can be a component. One or more components can reside within a process and/or thread of execution, and a component can be localized on one computer and/or distributed between two or more computers. Further, components may be communicatively coupled to each other by various types of communications media to coordinate operations. The coordination may involve the unidirectional or bi-directional exchange of information. For instance, the components may communicate information in the form of signals communicated over the communications media. The information can be implemented as signals allocated to various signal lines. In such allocations, each message is a signal. Further embodiments, however, may alternatively employ data messages. Such data messages may be sent across various connections. Exemplary connections include parallel interfaces, serial interfaces, and bus interfaces.

As shown in <FIG>, the computing architecture <NUM> comprises a processing unit <NUM>, a system memory <NUM> and a system bus <NUM>. The processing unit <NUM> can be any of various commercially available processors, including without limitation an AMD® Athlon®, Duron® and Opteron® processors; ARM® application, embedded and secure processors; IBM® and Motorola® DragonBall® and PowerPC® processors; IBM and Sony® Cell processors; Intel® Celeron®, Core (<NUM>) Duo®, Itanium®, Pentium®, Xeon®, and XScale® processors; and similar processors. Dual microprocessors, multi-core processors, and other multi-processor architectures may also be employed as the processing unit <NUM>.

The computing architecture <NUM> may comprise or implement various articles of manufacture. An article of manufacture may comprise a computer-readable storage medium to store logic. Examples of a computer-readable storage medium may include any tangible media capable of storing electronic data, including volatile memory or non-volatile memory, removable or non-removable memory, erasable or non-erasable memory, writeable or re-writeable memory, and so forth. Examples of logic may include executable computer program instructions implemented using any suitable type of code, such as source code, compiled code, interpreted code, executable code, static code, dynamic code, object-oriented code, visual code, and the like. Embodiments may also be at least partly implemented as instructions contained in or on a non-transitory computer-readable medium, which may be read and executed by one or more processors to enable performance of the operations described herein.

The computer <NUM> may include various types of computer-readable storage media in the form of one or more lower speed memory units, including an internal (or external) hard disk drive (HDD) <NUM>, a magnetic floppy disk drive (FDD) <NUM> to read from or write to a removable magnetic disk <NUM>, and an optical disk drive <NUM> to read from or write to a removable optical disk <NUM> (e.g., a CD-ROM or DVD). The HDD <NUM>, FDD <NUM> and optical disk drive <NUM> can be connected to the system bus <NUM> by a HDD interface <NUM>, an FDD interface <NUM> and an optical drive interface <NUM>, respectively. The HDD interface <NUM> for external drive implementations can include at least one or both of Universal Serial Bus (USB) and IEEE <NUM> interface technologies.

The drives and associated computer-readable media provide volatile and/or nonvolatile storage of data, data structures, computer-executable instructions, and so forth. For example, a number of program modules can be stored in the drives and memory units <NUM>, <NUM>, including an operating system <NUM>, one or more application programs <NUM>, other program modules <NUM>, and program data <NUM>. In one embodiment, the one or more application programs <NUM>, other program modules <NUM>, and program data <NUM> can include, for example, the various applications and/or components of the system <NUM>.

A user can enter commands and information into the computer <NUM> through one or more wire/wireless input devices, for example, a keyboard <NUM> and a pointing device, such as a mouse <NUM>. Other input devices may include microphones, infra-red (IR) remote controls, radio-frequency (RF) remote controls, game pads, stylus pens, card readers, dongles, finger print readers, gloves, graphics tablets, joysticks, keyboards, retina readers, touch screens (e.g., capacitive, resistive, etc.), trackballs, trackpads, sensors, styluses, and the like. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit <NUM> through an input device interface <NUM> that is coupled to the system bus <NUM>, but can be connected by other interfaces such as a parallel port, IEEE <NUM> serial port, a game port, a USB port, an IR interface, and so forth.

When used in a WAN networking environment, the computer <NUM> can include a modem <NUM>, or is connected to a communications server on the WAN <NUM>, or has other means for establishing communications over the WAN <NUM>, such as by way of the Internet. The modem <NUM>, which can be internal or external and a wire and/or wireless device, connects to the system bus <NUM> via the input device interface <NUM>. In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to the computer <NUM>, or portions thereof, can be stored in the remote memory/storage device <NUM>. It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers can be used.

The computer <NUM> is operable to communicate with wire and wireless devices or entities using the IEEE <NUM> family of standards, such as wireless devices operatively disposed in wireless communication (e.g., IEEE <NUM> over-the-air modulation techniques). This includes at least Wi-Fi (or Wireless Fidelity), WiMax, and Bluetooth™ wireless technologies, among others. Thus, the communication can be a predefined structure as with a conventional network or simply an ad hoc communication between at least two devices. Wi-Fi networks use radio technologies called IEEE <NUM>. 11x (a, b, g, n, etc.) to provide secure, reliable, fast wireless connectivity. A Wi-Fi network can be used to connect computers to each other, to the Internet, and to wire networks (which use IEEE <NUM>-related media and functions).

<FIG> illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary communications architecture <NUM> suitable for implementing various embodiments as previously described. The communications architecture <NUM> includes various common communications elements, such as a transmitter, receiver, transceiver, radio, network interface, baseband processor, antenna, amplifiers, filters, power supplies, and so forth. The embodiments, however, are not limited to implementation by the communications architecture <NUM>.

As shown in <FIG>, the communications architecture <NUM> comprises includes one or more clients <NUM> and servers <NUM>. The clients <NUM> may implement the client device <NUM>. The servers <NUM> may implement the server device <NUM>. The clients <NUM> and the servers <NUM> are operatively connected to one or more respective client data stores <NUM> and server data stores <NUM> that can be employed to store information local to the respective clients <NUM> and servers <NUM>, such as cookies and/or associated contextual information.

The clients <NUM> and the servers <NUM> may communicate information between each other using a communication framework <NUM>. The communications framework <NUM> may implement any well-known communications techniques and protocols. The communications framework <NUM> may be implemented as a packet-switched network (e.g., public networks such as the Internet, private networks such as an enterprise intranet, and so forth), a circuit-switched network (e.g., the public switched telephone network), or a combination of a packet-switched network and a circuit-switched network (with suitable gateways and translators).

The communications framework <NUM> may implement various network interfaces arranged to accept, communicate, and connect to a communications network. A network interface may be regarded as a specialized form of an input output interface. Network interfaces may employ connection protocols including without limitation direct connect, Ethernet (e.g., thick, thin, twisted pair <NUM>/<NUM>/<NUM> Base T, and the like), token ring, wireless network interfaces, cellular network interfaces, IEEE <NUM>. 11a-x network interfaces, IEEE <NUM> network interfaces, IEEE <NUM> network interfaces, and the like. Further, multiple network interfaces may be used to engage with various communications network types. For example, multiple network interfaces may be employed to allow for the communication over broadcast, multicast, and unicast networks. Should processing requirements dictate a greater amount speed and capacity, distributed network controller architectures may similarly be employed to pool, load balance, and otherwise increase the communicative bandwidth required by clients <NUM> and the servers <NUM>. A communications network may be any one and the combination of wired and/or wireless networks including without limitation a direct interconnection, a secured custom connection, a private network (e.g., an enterprise intranet), a public network (e.g., the Internet), a Personal Area Network (PAN), a Local Area Network (LAN), a Metropolitan Area Network (MAN), an Operating Missions as Nodes on the Internet (OMNI), a Wide Area Network (WAN), a wireless network, a cellular network, and other communications networks.

Various embodiments of the present disclosure include an apparatus comprising a logic circuit and logic operative on the logic circuit to configure an isolated memory region in a computing environment for secure communications with code executable in a memory region that is different from the isolated memory region, generate signed data using an attestation key that corresponds to the computing environment-the signed data comprising a secured encryption key and a signature to authenticate the secured encryption key-and communicate the signed data to a remote trusted component to access secret code stored in the isolated memory region.

The apparatus of the preceding paragraph may include logic further operative to generate the signature with a private attestation key that specifically corresponds to a secure computation provider that is in control of the computing environment. The apparatus of the preceding paragraph may include logic further operative to generate an encryption key for trusted code running in the isolated memory region. The apparatus of the preceding paragraph may include logic further operative to store key-value pairs in a buffer that is communicated to trusted code running in the isolated memory region or the remote trusted component. The apparatus of the preceding paragraph may include logic further configured to generate a cryptographic digest of a code package on a distributed file system and use the cryptographic digest to verify the signature of the secured encryption key. The apparatus of the preceding paragraph may include logic further operative to process a communication primitive directed towards trusted code running inside the isolated memory region or untrusted code running outside of the isolated memory region. The apparatus of the preceding paragraph may include logic further operative to process a communication primitive operative to invoke a function on the untrusted code running outside of the isolated memory region or the trusted code running inside the isolated memory region. The apparatus of the preceding paragraph may include logic further operative to verify the signature using a public attestation key and decrypt the secured encryption key to extract the encryption key. The embodiments described in the previous paragraph may also be combined with one or more of the specifically disclosed alternatives in this paragraph.

Various embodiments of the present disclosure also include an article comprising at least one computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed, cause a system to generate computation data corresponding by executing a set of computations within an isolated memory region of a computing environment, secure the computation data using an encryption key to generate secured computation data, and invoke a primitive to communicate the secured computation data to code running outside of the isolated memory region.

The article of the preceding paragraph may further comprise instructions that, when executed, cause the system to process a signature of the secured data generated using a private key that is associated with the computing environment and invoke a primitive to communicate the secured computation data and the signature to a remote trusted component. The article of the preceding paragraph may further comprise instructions that, when executed, cause a system to invoke a primitive function to generate the encryption key and another primitive function to generate the signature using the encryption key. The article of the preceding paragraph may further comprise instructions that, when executed, cause a system to secure the encryption key with a public key that corresponds to a remote trusted component running on a remote machine. In one or more embodiments of the articles described above, the public key is communicated with the article. The article of the preceding paragraph may further comprise instructions that, when executed, cause a system to decrypt secured user keys using the encryption key to extract user keys and use the user keys to decrypt secret code in the isolated memory region. The embodiments described in the previous paragraph may also be combined with one or more of the specifically disclosed alternatives in this paragraph.

Various embodiments of the present disclosure also include a method comprising the steps of generating an isolated memory region in a computing environment to store a code package where the isolated memory region is accessible only to code running in the isolated memory region, generating a signature using a private attestation key that corresponds to the computing environment, executing a verification process on the code package using the signature and a cryptographic digest of the code package, and communicating a verification result for the code package to a remote trusted component.

The method of the preceding paragraph may further comprise the step of communicating a secured user key to transform secret code of the code package into the application code. The method of the preceding paragraph may further comprise the step of loading an encrypted code package into the isolated memory region. The method of the preceding paragraph may further comprise the step of generating an encryption key to secure communications between the application code and code running outside of the isolated memory region. The method of the preceding paragraph may further comprise the step of generating an encryption key to secure communications between the application code and code running outside of the isolated memory region. The method of the preceding paragraph may further comprise the step of processing a message comprising the signed data using a public key that corresponds to the computing environment and generating a verification result indicating whether a message originated from the trusted component in the isolated memory region. The embodiments described in the previous paragraph may also be combined with one or more of the specifically disclosed alternatives in this paragraph.

Some embodiments may be described using the expression "one embodiment" or "an embodiment" along with their derivatives. These terms mean that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment. Further, some embodiments may be described using the expression "coupled" and "connected" along with their derivatives.

It is emphasized that the Abstract of the Disclosure is provided to allow a reader to quickly ascertain the nature of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. In addition, in the foregoing Detailed Description, it can be seen that various features are grouped together in a single embodiment for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed embodiments require more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matter lies in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus the following claims are hereby incorporated into the Detailed Description, with each claim standing on its own as a separate embodiment. In the appended claims, the terms "including" and "in which" are used as the plain-English equivalents of the respective terms "comprising" and "wherein," respectively. Moreover, the terms "first," "second," "third," and so forth, are used merely as labels, and are not intended to impose numerical requirements on their objects.

Claim 1:
An article comprising at least one computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed, cause a system to:
invoke a function of a primitive programming model to create an isolated memory region (<NUM>-<NUM>) in a computing environment:
generate (<NUM>) computation data corresponding to execution of a set of computations within the isolated memory region (<NUM>-<NUM>) of the computing environment;
secure (<NUM>) the computation data using an encryption key (<NUM>) to generate secured computation data (<NUM>);
secure the encryption key with a public key that corresponds to a remote trusted component running on a remote machine, wherein the public key is communicated with the article;
sign the secured encryption key and communicate the signed secured encryption key to the remote trusted component; and
invoke a primitive (<NUM>) of the primitive programming model to communicate the secured computation data to code (<NUM>,<NUM>-<NUM>) running on the remote trusted component outside of the isolated memory region, wherein the primitive programming model configures the isolated memory region with a secure communication channel to the code running on the remote trusted component outside of the isolated memory region.