Method and system for contained cryptographic separation
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorRobert Thomas Owen Rees
Life of this patent
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Abstract
To provide for cryptographic separation, embodiments of the invention employ containment mechanisms provided by trusted operating systems to ensure that plaintext data which must be encrypted in accordance with a security policy (or, in reverse, ciphertext data which is to be decrypted) is processed by a suitable encryption routine before being sent onwards for transmission, storage, or the like. Such containment mechanisms usually include mandatory system access control rules which specify to which system resources the output of a system resource (such as an application) may be supplied. By specifying a suitable set of such rules, mandatory encryption can be enforced at the operating system kernel level.
Claims17
A system for data encryption comprising:
- a computer containing one or more programs implementing:
- an encryption engine;
- a plaintext data system resource and a ciphertext data system resource both of which run on a single operating system;
- and
- operating system elements that ensure that data passing between said plaintext data system resource and said ciphertext data system resource is processed by the encryption engine so as to be encrypted or decrypted, as appropriate and that ensure transfer of data via other data paths between said plaintext data system resource and said ciphertext data system resource that avoid the encryption engine be prevented, wherein the operating system elements comprise a set of the communications rules that define a mandatory path along which data must be routed between the plaintext system resource and the ciphertext system resource.
A method of operating a computer having an operating system, and plaintext and ciphertext system resources running on the operating system, the method comprising the steps of:
- transmitting data between the plaintext and ciphertext system resources within the computer;
- routing the transmitted data via an encryption engine between the plaintext and ciphertext system resources in the computer system;
- using operating system elements to ensure that the encryption engine encrypts or decrypts, as the case requires, the data transmitted between the plaintext and ciphertext system resources;
- and
- using the operating system elements to ensure that transfer of data via other data paths between the plaintext and ciphertext system resources that avoid the encryption engine be prevented, wherein using the operating system elements comprises implementing in the operating system, a set of the communications rules that define a mandatory path along which data must be routed between the plain text system resource and the ciphertext system resource.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.