Question

Bob has developed a very secure solution for data integrity in a cloud. This solution requires adding a $20 TPM chip to each computer in a data center. Is this solution practical? Please explain briefly.

Answer 1

Yes adding TPM chip to computers in data center is the right solution and also practical. Let me justify my answer.

I am explaining by raising various question and answering the same.

TPM: Trusted Platform Module

What is TPM?

A protecting chip which secures the system from both outside and inside attack.

Use of TPM: Though there are many anti-virus software and other essentail software is installed to protect the system in clouds, still hackers attack the system. To avoid this TCG (Trusted Computing Group) has designed an hardware chip called TPM to protect the cloud system.

Is TPM hardware or software? TPM is a hardware which is present on the motherboard to protect the system from various attacks.

How TPM works?

There is a key called "Endorsement key" to protect the data. This is not exposed or shared to any other component, which makes TPM more relaiable. Endoresement key will be present inside the TPM itself.

Highlight of TPM:

TPM provides Remote attestation. Let us understand the term attestation. "Attestation means a guessetted officer places his signature by confirming that the document is right". In a similar way TPM provides remote attestation to authenticate itself to a remote requiest. AIKs are used for this purpose.

AIKs - Attestation Identity Keys

Considering all the above information Bob has chosen the right way to secure the cloud.