RV-TEE-Based Trustworthy Secure Shell Deployment: An Empirical Evaluation.

Abstract

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Incorrect cryptographic protocol implementation and malware attacks targeting its runtime may lead to insecure execution even if the protocol design has been proven safe. This research focuses on adapting a runtime-verification-centric trusted execution environment (RV-TEE) solution to a cryptographic protocol deployment -particularly that of the Secure Shell Protocol (SSH). We aim to show that through a concrete realization of RV-TEE, which is neither tied to specific CPU mode nor requires the consequential operating system support, SSH execution can be rendered trustworthy. We provide: (i) An RV-TEE setup for a popular SSH implementation based on a widely-adopted RV tool, and a USB-connected hardware security module (ii) An overview of the property extraction process through a methodical analysis of the SSH protocol specifications (iii) Security vulnerabilities identified as a result of RV-TEE adoption (iv) An overhead analysis delineating what SSH applications can benefit from our proposed setup in a practical manner.