Security in Computing 5th Edition by Shari Lawrence Pfleeger, Charles P Pfleeger, Jonathan Margulies

Exercise 14

Several proposals have been made for a processor that could decrypt encrypted data and machine instructions and then execute the instructions on the data. The processor would then encrypt the results. How would such a processor be useful? What are the design requirements for such a processor?

Step 1 of 2

Secure cryptoprocessors

Such processors that follow multiple security measures for carrying out the cryptographic operations are called as the secure cryptoprocessors. Thus, the main purpose and use of such a secure cryptoprocessor are that it acts as a physical security measure and is a keystone of the sub-system of security. Such processors thus support memory and transparently decrypt the data whenever the memory or the data or code is read before writing the data back into the memory.