The University of New Mexico will host a workshop on November 29 to December 1 towards the realization of a secure computing platform. There is a pressing need for a secure host, as most of the attacks on our nation's computer and networks systems exploit weaknesses in the end points, i.e., the host computers on which users run applications. This workshop will assemble experts from academia, industry (hardware and software communities) and US Government agencies to prepare an agenda for the development of a secure host, including the hardware base, the operating system, the interface to the users and to the network.
Topics to be covered in the workshop include:
Status of security tagged architectures Pointer control and Memory layouts in a secure tagged architecture New Frontiers Enabled by Cheap Domain Crossings Secure Programming Language Zero Kernel Operating System, that is operating systems with essentially no security kernel Formal Verification of Hardware, as one step towards a secure host Advanced User Interfaces as a step towards a manageable system Industry Roadmap out 5-10 years, to determine what industry can offer in hardware support for security Legacy Systems and Applications, to previous work towards a secure host but also to determine how legacy systems can be accommodated on a newly-developed host processor and operating system Roadmap for Cryptography and Authentication, to determine how to interface the secure host to encrypted media and also how to selectively encrypt memory on the secure host Attack Scenarios, to identify threats to the secure host for the purpose of designing to accommodate to such threats but also to look towards a red team exercise Verification Assessment, to identify the feasibility of applying recent promising research in formal methods towards the verification of the secure host Networking, to determine how to interface the secure host to network services, such as those being studied under NSF's GENI and FIND programs
