Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs) and other advances in hardware have made it possible to address many security issues, such as ensuring that all loaded software is from authorized sources. As an example, The Windows 8 Secure Boot relies on TPM technology to provide strong guarantees for device integrity, and both Intel and AMD chips include abilities to use external verifiers for code verification.
Although these hardware advances provide extremely useful and powerful security properties, researchers and practitioners have been slow to adopt these technologies. One of the main reasons is the lack of familiarity with the capabilities and properties of these technologies. To address this situation, the Trusted Infrastructure Workshop (TIW 2013) provides training for current graduate students with experience in computer security about these technologies and how they can be leveraged for research and engineering. TIW 2013 offers students lectures by leading researchers from industry, government, and academia that are actively developing and using trusted computing technologies, as well as developing future infrastructure technologies for building secure systems.
The Trusted Infrastructure Workshop (TIW) 2013 was an educational workshop for graduate students studying in the research area of computer security. TIW 2013 focuses on methods for blocking adversary attacks using systems and hardware security features. 20 lectures were presented by experts from industry, government, and academia on a variety of topics, including trusted computing, software attestation, virtualization security, cloud computing security, mobile device security, smart grid security, hardware security, etc. In addition, hands-on labs were run giving the students insight on using trusted computing standards and OpenStack cloud computing security mechanisms. Microsoft also presented a demonstration of configuring data integrity protection using trusted computing hardware and we held a capture-the-flag competition for the students. 46 graduate students from US universities attended TIW 2013, and NSF funding supported the travel expenses of 20 of these students. Through TIW 2013, these students were able to learn from experts from all over the US, from Canada, and the UK. In addition, the students were able to network with these experts and among themselves. Based on the post-workshop survey, we found that 90% of the attendees would be interested in attending a TIW meeting again. As a result, we find that TIW 2013 has had a positive impact by connecting, building, and training a research community focused on security solutions using systems and hardware mechanisms.
