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KU Leuven (2)


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dissertation (2)


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English (2)


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2023 (1)

2022 (1)

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Dissertation
VulCAN beyond CAN

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Abstract

Connected vehicles have in recent years become a popular research topic. The research field is broad ranging from autonomous driving to 5G communication to V2X (vehicle-to-anything). While V2X solutions are crucial for connected vehicle applications, there are also important associated cyber security risks. Two security requirements are identified for V2X: authentic chain and privacy. Authentic chain is a strong authenticity guarantee enabling end-nodes (such as vehicles) to trace a received message back to the original verified physical entity that sent it (such as a traffic light). Privacy in V2X is tied to identity management, this guarantee requires a notion of anonymity or pseudonymity. Important challenges in implementing these objectives include: resource constraints, performance and availability, heterogeneity, maintainability, and decentralization. Previous V2X solutions for implementing the proposed security objectives fall short in implementing the established security guarantees and addressing the challenges, leading to the proposition of a new design based on DAA (Direct Anonymous Attestation) for securing V2X communication. The design is based on previous research and extends this work by using Intel SGX TEE, enclaves on the issuer side, and RSA key usage. Thus satisfying the authenticity and pseudonimity requirements through the underlying trusted DAAscheme as well as addressing several of the aforementioned challenges. A practical prototype of the design is implemented and a performance evaluation is provided. The implementation is in line with expected benchmarks such as previous work, standardized V2X latency period, and human reaction time showing the feasibility of privacy-preserving attestation with trusted execution in V2X applications.

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Dissertation
Resource Counting in Intel SGX: Improving Permissionless Consensus Protocols with Trusted Execution Environments

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In the realm of distributed systems, the lack of a centralized clock as well as network delays and byzantine actors pose a significant challenge in globally ordering events. Pioneering work by Lamport introduced solutions such as Lamport timestamps and vector clocks, which, while effective at providing causal/local ordering, fail to achieve global event ordering. Early consensus algorithms, like Paxos and Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT), emerged to address this issue but were found to be inadequate in permissionless settings. Proof of Work (PoW) offers a permissionless alternative but is hindered by massive energy consumption. Recent developments in Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) have enabled secure and isolated computation of code with a minimal amount of trust required in software and hardware. This presents a promising foundation for the development of novel consensus algorithms. By leveraging TEEs and remote attestation, it becomes possible to create verifiable computing and integrate this into existing consensus algorithms. This thesis explores the utilization of TEEs, particularly Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX), to develop a custom consensus algorithm that addresses the challenges posed by decentralized event ordering in distributed systems. A unique implementation is proposed that extends Proof of Useful Work by incorporating a counting mechanism within a custom interpreter. This allows for the verifiable execution of arbitrary programs while preserving the energy efficiency benefits of TEE-based consensus algorithms. The main goal of the interpreter is to quantify computer resources dedicated to useful calculations. The proposed implementation, which leverages Intel SGX’s capabilities, demonstrates the potential for a solution to the long-standing problem of efficient decentralized event ordering. Extensive benchmarks are performed in order to evaluate the efficiency and security of the proposed mechanism. A thorough examination of the proposed approach’s problems and weaknesses is conducted while simultaneously addressing possible improvements that eliminate some of the shortcomings. This research contributes to the growing body of knowledge surrounding consensus algorithms and their applications in distributed systems, ultimately paving the way for more sustainable and efficient cloud computing solutions.

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