Method, system, and program product for remotely attesting to a state of a computer system
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsStefan Berger, Kenneth Goldman, Trent R. Jaeger, Ronald Perez, Reiner Sailer, Enriquillo Valdez
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method, system, and program product for remotely attesting to a state of computing system is provided. Specifically, the present invention allows a remote system to establish trust in the properties of the computer system. The properties to be trusted are expanded from the usual system software layers and related configuration files to novel types of data such as static data specific to the computer system, dynamic data determined at system startup, or dynamic data created as the computer system runs applications.
Claims4
A method of a remote computer system establishing a secure connection to a local computer system comprising:
- by the remote computer system:
- receiving a list, the list including:
- names of measured items specific to the local computer system,
- values of the measured items, and
- signed states of current Platform Configuration Register (PCR) values stored on the remote computer system and received from the local computer system,
- wherein the PCR values include dynamic data associated with the local computer system, the dynamic data associated with the local computer system is generated continuously as the local computer system is running and includes:
- a network dynamic IP address assigned to the local computer system;
- a notification that a user has logged into the local computer system;
- an event occurring on the local computer system, the event including an error condition detected by the local computer system, and
- wherein the dynamic data relates to at least one of an execution or a termination of a program running on the local computer system;
- establishing a secure connection to the local computer system and receiving an authentication credential of the local computer system;
- verifying that the authentication credential is contained in the received list;
- and
- determining whether to continue establishing the secure connection based on the verifying.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.