Threat model

Process (computing)

Biology

Isolation (microbiology)

Computer security

Operating system

Set (abstract data type)

Computer science

Side channel attack

Code (set theory)

Economic history

Software

Secure coding

Malware

Information security

Microbiology

Rootkit

Cryptography

Programming language

Security service

Arms race

Software security assurance

History

IEEE Security & Privacy

Software attacks on modern computer systems have been a persisting challenge for several decades, leading to a continuous arms race between attacks and defenses. As a first line of defense, operating system kernels enforce process isolation to limit potential attacks to only the code containing the vulnerabilities. However, vulnerabilities in the kernel itself (for example, various vulnerabilities found by Google Project Zero), side-channel attacks,<sup>1</sup> or even physical attacks<sup>2</sup> can be used to undermine process isolation.

Trusted Execution Environments: Properties, Applications, and Challenges