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Confidential Computing Consortium

May 07

Shaping the Future of Attestation: Linaro to Host Endorsement API Workshop at Linaro Connect 2025

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This year’s Linaro Connect conference in Lisbon promises to be a landmark event for the confidential computing community. With multiple talks, workshops, and roundtables focused on trusted execution environments, attestation, and supply chain trust, confidential computing has emerged as an important theme of the 2025 conference.

Among the highlights: a keynote address from Mike Bursell, Executive Director of the Confidential Computing Consortium, who will share his insights on how industry-wide collaboration and open source are essential for the long-term success of this technology as it becomes mainstream.
Mike’s keynote is especially timely and relevant in the context of this year’s conference, where no fewer than 10 technical sessions are listed in the confidential computing track, from organisations including Arm, Linaro, Fujitsu and Huawei.

And it doesn’t end there.

On Tuesday May 13th (the day before the main conference), Linaro have allocated a full-day workshop on the topic of Endorsement APIs. This workshop brings together engineers, researchers, standards bodies, and open source contributors to tackle one of the most pressing challenges in remote attestation: how to securely and efficiently distribute Endorsements and Reference Values across the diverse ecosystem of confidential computing platforms and applications.

Why Endorsement APIs Matter

In Remote Attestation (RATS) architecture, Endorsements and Reference Values are essential artefacts for attestation evidence appraisal. They can originate from various sources throughout the supply chain, including silicon manufacturers, hardware integrators, firmware providers, and software providers. Their distribution is influenced by technical, commercial, and even geopolitical factors. The potential consumers of these artefacts, referred to as “Verifiers” in RATS terms, include cloud-hosted verification services, local verifiers bundled with relying parties, constrained nodes, and endpoint devices. This acute diversity creates challenges for software integration and poses fragmentation risks. Aligning on data formats and APIs will help address these challenges and maximise software component reuse for data transactions between endpoints.

A Space for Open Collaboration

Sharing its venue with the main Linaro Connect conference — the Corinthia Hotel in Lisbon — the workshop will combine hackathon-style prototyping sessions in the morning with interactive presentations and roundtables in the afternoon.
Confirmed participants include representatives from:

  • Arm
  • Intel
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Fujitsu
  • Oracle
  • IBM Research
  • NIST
  • Fraunhofer SIT
  • Alibaba
  • CanaryBit
  • and several university research groups

Activities on the day will include:

  • Gathering requirements from stakeholders
  • Surveying existing services and tools
  • Examining the interaction models between producers and consumers
  • Designing standardised APIs for retrieving endorsement artefacts from the supply chain
  • Hands-on prototyping

And most importantly, this is a space where implementers and spec authors can come together to turn ideas into prototypes, and prototypes into common solutions.

What is Linaro Connect?

If you’re new to the event, Linaro Connect is the premier open engineering forum for Arm software ecosystems. It brings together maintainers of open source projects, engineers from major silicon vendors, and contributors to key standards and security initiatives — all under one roof.

Whether you’re working on Linux kernel internals, UEFI, Trusted Firmware, or emerging attestation stacks, Linaro Connect is the place to share ideas, get feedback, and shape the direction of trusted computing.

You can view the full schedule for this year’s conference here.

Stay Tuned

We’ll publish a follow-up blog after the workshop, summarizing key outcomes, emerging standards proposals, and concrete next steps. Whether you’re building a verifier, defining a token format, or just starting to explore confidential computing, this is a conversation you’ll want to follow.

See you in Lisbon.

Apr 30

Welcome to the 2025 April Newsletter

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In Today’s Issue

  1. From the Executive Director
  2. Outreach: OC3 Retro and RSAC
  3. Upcoming Events
  4. From the TAC
  5. Recent News

Welcome to our latest newsletter! This month’s newsletter highlights the CCC’s growing presence at major industry events, including an expanded booth at RSAC and strong member engagement at OC3. We also spotlight technical milestones from Gramine and Enarx, new governance resources to support compliance, and a thought-provoking webinar on confidential computing in the cloud.

From the Executive Director (ED)

As you’ll see below, the CCC has a booth at the RSA Conference this month. The conference is probably the biggest security conference in the world, and this is our second year with a booth. This year, we’ve gone out of our way to encourage members to help staff the booth. The costs for individual members for a booth at the Expo are very high, and the opportunity to be on the CCC booth allows members not only the chance to talk to attendees about the CCC, but also to discuss their own products and solutions. I’ve enjoyed staffing the booth alongside our members, and while there are still lots of people coming to see us who don’t know what Confidential Computing is, I’ve been cheered by the percentage of attendees who have got some idea of what the technology provides.  

We’ll be at other upcoming events and will be inviting members to staff booths at those as well: keep a lookout for Outreach announcements – or better yet, join the calls!

Outreach

OC3 – Retro

  • At OC3, Mike Bursell presented “Why Remote Attestation is the Next Business Driver” during the CCC session. He emphasized that while trusted execution environments (TEEs) are transforming how businesses manage and interact with data, Remote Attestation is a critical next step.  Often treated as an add-on, Remote Attestation is essential to fully realizing the value of Confidential Computing. Mike outlined why it matters and shared concrete examples of its significant business impact.
OC3

CCC members were highly engaged at OC3, with many companies showcasing projects spanning Confidential Computing, attestation frameworks, secure data processing, and emerging industry use cases.

In addition to individual project presentations, members also shared updates on collaborative initiatives and cross-industry efforts aimed at driving standards, improving interoperability, and supporting broader adoption.

You can view the full schedule of CCC member presentations and initiatives here.

Watch all OC3 session recordings here.

RSAC – Happening this week

  • The CCC is hosting a booth this week at RSAC, featuring double the space and an enhanced setup to showcase a broader range of member projects and initiatives in Confidential Computing. This year, a notable number of members are presenting their projects and products, including Anjuna, Fortanix, Hushmesh, IBM, Intel, Invary, Linux Foundation, NVIDIA, and TikTok (listed alphabetically). We invite you to stop by the CCC booth to learn more about Confidential Computing and how you can get involved. A sincere thank you to all participating members for their contributions – we look forward to even greater participation in the future.

Upcoming Events

From the TAC

This month we got annual updates from both our longest running project, Enarx, and our most adopted project, Gramine.

Enarx is in its second life. Richard Zak continues to carry the torch and maintain Enarx as companies continue to express interest in the unique TEE-agnostic, WASM-based, workload isolation capabilities Enarx provides.

Gramine won the prestigious ACSAC (Annual Computer Security Applications Conference) Cybersecurity Artifact Award at the end of the year. If you missed our post on that you can read it here.

Gramine has also expanded scope from process isolation with SGX to VM isolation with TDX. Gramine was able to reuse a significant portion of the hardened LibOS to provide a tighter security footprint alternative to general purpose Confidential VMs. You can read more about it in their ACM paper.

This month the Governance, Risk, and Compliance SIG has elevated three Governance Patterns to the TAC for final review. These documents will help compliance officers understand best practices for correct use of Confidential Computing technologies. These are some of the first documents we are creating to help people understand how Confidential Computing helps satisfy compliance requirements.

Recent News

  • CCC Executive Director Mike Bursell appeared on a webinar on April 15th  titled “Public is Private – Confidential Computing in the Cloud” along with Manu Fontaine, founder of Hushmesh. The webinar explored the transformative potential of confidential computing for cloud environments. It’s now available to watch for free on demand here.

Subscribe to our newsletter!

Mar 31

Welcome to the 2025 March Newsletter

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March’s Issue:

  • From the Executive Director
  • NEW! Outreach: Submit your talks & booth demos! 
  • Upcoming Events
  • From the TAC
  • Recent News

Welcome to our latest newsletter! This month’s newsletter covers opportunities for members to staff CCC conference booths, upcoming CFP deadlines, newly approved SIG on Trustworthy Workload Identity, and recent developments in Confidential Computing, including ManaTEE and container security insights.

From the Executive Director (ED)

As conference season continues, it’s worth a reminder that whenever we (the CCC) have a booth at a conference or exhibition, that’s an opportunity for our members and open source projects to attend and staff that booth.  Usually, we get several free passes for booth staff, which means that all you need to do is volunteer (via the Outreach group) and turn up!  You’re welcome to bring your own swag and marketing materials, and while the main branding and messaging focus is, of course, on the CCC, we believe that one of the great benefits of membership is being able to promote not just the consortium, but also your own company or project’s work.  Upcoming events where we’ll have a booth include the RSA Conference and Confidential Computing Summit, so if you’re interested, please get in touch.

Outreach

The deadline is just around the corner! The Confidential Computing Consortium is excited to be sponsoring several upcoming events. As a valued member, you have the opportunity to share your ideas through CCC sponsored speaker sessions. We’re currently accepting submissions for speaker sessions and booth presentations. Whether you have a story to share, a project to demo, or an idea to inspire others, we encourage you to submit a proposal. Don’t miss out and check out the list of opportunities below!

Upcoming Events

From the TAC

Last month we talked about emerging interest across the Consortium to advance Trustworthy Workload Identity. In a nutshell, Confidential Computing can provide cryptographic evidence about the integrity and identity of a workload. However there are ease of use gaps in our common tooling and gaps in the ecosystem’s recognition of these capabilities.

I’m happy to say that a charter quickly came together and that across the TAC there was clear agreement and possibly more importantly commitment to contribute to the goals of the charter. We voted to approve TWI as the newest SIG. You can find the charter here.

We are still standing up some infrastructure for it including a mailing list. Meanwhile you can always check the CCC calendar to find where and when meetings are taking place. For now TWI contributors will meet Tuesdays. View the calendar here.

Recent News

  • At FOSDEM 2025, Dayeol Lee introduced ManaTEE, an open source framework enabling secure, privacy-preserving data analytics. By leveraging Privacy-Enhancing Techniques (PETs) and Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), ManaTEE empowers researchers to analyze sensitive data with confidence. Now part of the Confidential Computing Consortium, ManaTEE is shaping the future of secure data collaboration. Read the blog to learn more about the framework, its use cases, and how you can contribute:
  • Does Confidential Computing work with containers? The short answer: Yes. But the real question is how it works and what level of security isolation fits your needs. In this blog, Dan Middleton breaks down different interpretations of “containers” and explores four key isolation patterns for protecting containerized applications with Confidential Computing. Read the blog.

Subscribe to our newsletter!

Mar 21

Showcasing ManaTEE at FOSDEM 2025

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This post was originally shared on deverlopers.tiktok.com

By Dayeol Lee, Research Scientist at TikTok Privacy Innovation Lab, and Mateus Guzzo, Open Source Advocate

At FOSDEM 2025, Dayeol Lee, a Research Scientist at TikTok’s Privacy Innovation Lab, introduced ManaTEE, an open-source framework designed to facilitate privacy-preserving data analytics for public research. The framework integrates Privacy-Enhancing Techniques (PETs), including confidential computing, to safeguard data privacy without compromising usability. It offers an interactive interface through JupyterLab, providing an intuitive experience for researchers and data scientists. ManaTEE leverages Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) to ensure both data confidentiality and execution integrity, fostering trust between data owners and analysts. Additionally, it provides proof of execution through attestation, enabling researchers to demonstrate the reproducibility and integrity of their results. The framework simplifies deployment by leveraging cloud-based confidential computing backends, making secure and private data analytics accessible and scalable for diverse use cases.

The video recording of Dayeol Lee’s presentation is available for viewing here.

ManaTEE was originally developed by TikTok as a privacy solution for secure data collaboration and has been donated to the Linux Foundation’s Confidential Computing Consortium. Also, ManaTEE is the core privacy preserving technology powering TikTok Research Tools, such as the TikTok Virtual Compute Environment (VCE). The framework is designed to meet the increasing need for secure data collaboration, addressing critical challenges in data privacy and security.

Private data for public interest

Private data is considered very valuable for businesses, as they can extract significant value from it. However, many miss the value of private data for public interest. Personal or proprietary data can be combined to provide insights into various public research domains such as public health, public safety, and education. For example, medical data could be combined with personal dietary data to offer insights into how personal habits impact health.

Data analytics for public interest often requires the combination of numerous datasets to ensure accurate insights and conclusions. Sometimes these datasets come from different sources. There are several challenges to fully combining these datasets. Multiple data providers may have conflicting interests and enforce different privacy policies and compliances. Moreover, data may be distributed across many platforms, including on-premise clusters, clouds, and data warehouses, making it hard to ensure all computations on the data are accountable and transparent.

What is ManaTEE?

To fully enable privacy-preserving data analytics for public interest, we need a standardized approach that provides strong privacy protection with technical enforcement, as well as accountability and transparency. Moreover, we need a framework that is easy to deploy and use.

We find that existing technical solutions such as differential privacy and trusted execution environments offer great properties to achieve our goals. We believe that a well-designed system could use existing techniques to offer a standardized way of private data analytics.

We decided to design and build ManaTEE, a framework that allows data owners to securely share their data for public research, with technically enforced privacy, accountability, and transparency guarantees. With the framework, researchers can gain accurate insights from private or proprietary datasets.

ManaTEE community release


The first community release of ManaTEE includes easy deployment options, a comprehensive demo tutorial, and an extensible framework ready for contributions. Future plans for ManaTEE involve expanding backend support to multi-cloud and on-prem solutions, integrating privacy-compliant data pipelines, enhancing output privacy protections, and supporting confidential GPUs for AI workloads.

For those interested in exploring ManaTEE further, the project is available on GitHub, and the community is encouraged to contribute to its development. The open governance model under the Confidential Computing Consortium aims to foster a vibrant ecosystem of contributors to enhance the project with new features, improved security, and more use cases.

May 23

May Newsletter

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Welcome to the 2024 May Newsletter

In Today’s Issue:

  1. RSAC Recap
  2. New CCC Working Groups
  3. Tech Talk on Attestation
  4. CCC Blogs + Upcoming Events
  5. CC Summit: Conference for Confidential Data & AI

Hello Community Member,

CCC New Working Groups

As you know, industry-leading organizations come together at CCC and are constantly working to develop and collaborate on standards for Confidential Computing.

On this topic, we’re forming a working group to look at repositioning the CCC and how we present ourselves to the outside world (not to mention potential members), including reflecting on the importance of AI, data privacy, and collaborative computation.

Another working group is considering whether the Consortium should offer a certification for companies, products, services, or solutions.  We’re looking for involvement in both of these working groups, so if you have strong views on either, please get in touch.

Tech Talk on Attestation

Attestation lets us evaluate whether we can trust an enclave or a Confidential Virtual Machine (CVM). CVMs have more moving parts to evaluate than enclaves.

This month we had a great Tech Talk from Googler, Dionna Glaze. She explained a lot of the detail required to provide transparency and trust in some of these layers like the virtual firmware (UEFI). 

Watch this talk on YouTube and find the slides in our TAC Governance repository.

New Blogs This Month

CCC at Industry Conferences

Coming up next, here are our upcoming event activities.

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We’re pumped to have so many expert speakers coming together for #CCSummit in just a few weeks. Save BIG with the CCC discount code and invite your network to join us.

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Coming to CC Summit? Join us for an evening of an unforgettable speakeasy experience and good conversation. Mark your calendar, RSVP below, and we can’t wait to see you!
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If you find this newsletter helpful, forward this to your network!
Subscribe to CCC Newsletter
Apr 10

The CIA Triad for Confidential Computing

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At the heart of cybersecurity, the CIA triad is a model designed to guide policies for information security within an organization. It consists of three fundamental principles:

Confidentiality: Ensures that sensitive information is accessed only by authorized parties and is protected against unauthorized access. Techniques such as data encryption, secure authentication, and access controls are employed to maintain confidentiality.

Integrity: Guarantees that information is reliable and accurate, safeguarding it from unauthorized modification. Integrity is upheld through mechanisms like checksums, cryptographic hashes, and digital signatures, ensuring that data remains unaltered from its original state unless modified by authorized entities.

Availability: Ensures that information and resources are available to authorized users when needed. This involves protecting against attacks that disrupt access to resources, such as DDoS attacks, and implementing disaster recovery plans to maintain service continuity.

Confidential Computing (CC) enhances the traditional CIA triad by focusing on protecting data in use—complementing existing measures that protect data at rest and in transit. By leveraging hardware-based security mechanisms such as Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), CC enables sensitive data to be processed in isolated environments, thus offering a unique opportunity to reexamine and reinforce the principles of the CIA triad in modern computing scenarios.

Aligning with the CIA Triad

Confidentiality in Confidential Computing: The essence of Confidential Computing lies in its ability to ensure that data being processed remains confidential, even in shared or cloud environments. Through technologies like Intel SGX and TDX, AMD SEV-SNP, and ARM CCA provide hardware-based, attested Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) which protect from unauthorized access, including operators of cloud services.

Integrity in Confidential Computing: CC technologies also play a crucial role in ensuring the integrity of data and code execution. Confidential Computing allows for the verification of software and data integrity before execution, ensuring that only authorized code runs within TEEs. This is instrumental in preventing unauthorized modifications and ensuring that computations are performed accurately.

Availability in Confidential Computing: While confidentiality and integrity are the primary focus of Confidential Computing, it also contributes to availability by enhancing the overall security posture. By mitigating the risk of data breaches and ensuring the integrity of computing processes, CC supports the uninterrupted availability of services, fostering trust and reliability in digital ecosystems.

Confidential Computing: A Journey Through the CIA Triad

Confidential Computing (CC) stands as a pivotal advancement in the realm of cybersecurity, offering robust mechanisms to protect data in use and reinforcing the principles of the CIA triad—Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability—in novel and powerful ways. There are several key takeaways emerge:

Confidential Computing enhances the traditional CIA triad by introducing protections for data in use, alongside existing measures for data at rest and in transit. The evolution of CC technologies demonstrates a concerted effort to address the complexities of modern computing environments, ensuring that sensitive data can be processed securely and reliably.

Integrity and confidentiality are paramount in CC, with innovations providing mechanisms for verifying the authenticity and safeguarding the privacy of data during processing.

Availability, while indirectly impacted by CC, benefits from the improved security posture that CC technologies bring to digital infrastructures, supporting the reliability and accessibility of services.

As the landscape of digital threats continues to evolve, so too will the technologies and strategies employed to counter them. Confidential Computing represents a forward-thinking approach to cybersecurity, promising to play a crucial role in safeguarding the future of digital information processing.

Further Reading and Resources

To further explore the concepts and technologies discussed, the following resources serve as a starting point for those seeking to deepen their understanding of Confidential Computing and its significance in today’s cybersecurity landscape. By engaging with these materials, you’ll gain a more nuanced appreciation of the challenges and opportunities that Confidential Computing presents:

1. The Confidential Computing Consortium: An initiative by the Linux Foundation, this consortium brings together industry leaders to collaborate on open-source projects and standards for Confidential Computing.

2. NIST on Confidential Computing: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) provides resources and publications that address the technical aspects and standards related to Confidential Computing.

Mar 19

Collaborative Security: The Role of Open Source in Confidential Computing

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Authored by Sal Kimmich

Blog Post

As we continue our exploration of Confidential Computing, this week we focus on a crucial aspect that is often the unsung hero of technological advancement: open source. Specifically, we’ll examine how open-source initiatives are contributing significantly to the development and implementation of Confidential Computing.

Open Source: A Foundation for Innovation

Open-source software is built on the principle of collaboration and transparency. It allows developers from around the world to contribute to and review each other’s code, fostering innovation and rapid problem-solving. This collaborative approach is particularly beneficial in the realm of cybersecurity, where the sharing of knowledge and resources is key to staying ahead of threats.

Open Source in Confidential Computing

In the context of Confidential Computing, open source plays a pivotal role. Open-source projects provide the foundation for many Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) and other secure computing technologies. By leveraging open-source software, developers can create more robust, secure, and versatile solutions for data protection.

Advantages of Open Source in Security

One of the main advantages of open source in the field of Confidential Computing is transparency. Open-source code can be inspected by anyone, which means vulnerabilities can be identified and addressed more quickly than in proprietary software. This transparency builds trust and reliability, essential components in any security solution.

Linux: A Testament to Open-Source Success

Reflecting on the impact of open source, we can’t overlook Linux, released in 1991 and now a cornerstone of open-source software. Linux’s success demonstrates how collaborative efforts can lead to robust and widely-used technology solutions. It’s a testament to the power of open-source communities in driving innovation.

Challenges and Opportunities

While open source offers many benefits, it also presents unique challenges, particularly in terms of coordination and quality control. However, these challenges are often outweighed by the opportunities for innovation and the rapid development cycle that open source enables.

Looking Ahead

As Confidential Computing continues to evolve, the role of open source will undoubtedly expand. Open-source communities will continue to be vital in developing secure, efficient, and adaptable solutions for data protection in an increasingly complex digital landscape.

Next Week’s Focus

Join us next week as we delve into the intricacies of data encryption in Confidential Computing. We’ll explore how encryption techniques are being enhanced and applied in new ways to protect data not just at rest and in transit, but also during processing.

Explore the four-part series on Confidential Computing—a vital innovation for data privacy and security. Dive in now!

Part I –  Introduction to Confidential Computing:  A Year Long Exploration

Part II – The Evolution of Cybersecurity:  From Early Threats to Modern Challenges

Part III– Basics of Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs):  The Heart of Confidential Computing

Mar 14

The Guide to Confidential Computing Sessions at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe (March 20-21)

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Confidential Computing is a transformative approach to protecting data in use, enabling computation in memory without exposing it to the rest of the system. As cloud-native technologies continue to evolve, KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2024 offers sessions at the forefront. This guide is your go-to resource for exploring the Confidential Computing offerings, ensuring you make the most of your conference experience.

Key Demos, Sessions and Posters 

Learn about Attested Containers for securing containerized workloads and other open source Confidential Computing demos at Intel’s booth, H5.

Poster Session: Kubernetes in the Confidential Computing Marvels: Unlocking SMPC Across Multi-Cloud Clusters

When: Wednesday, March 20 • 18:00 20:00

Who: Gilles Seghaier & Nayani Parameshwari, Astran

Find on KubeCon Schedule

Dive into the world of Secure Multiparty Computation (sMPC) with Kubernetes, exploring its application across multi-cloud clusters for enhanced data security.

Fortifying AI Security in Kubernetes with Confidential Containers (CoCo)

When: Thursday, March 21 • 14:30 15:05

Who: Suraj Deshmukh, Microsoft & Pradipta Banerjee, Red Hat

Find on KubeCon Schedule

A deep dive into securing AI models in Kubernetes using Confidential Containers, ensuring data privacy without sacrificing performance.

Memory Armor for SPIRE: Fortifying SPIRE with Confidential Containers (CoCo)

When: Thursday, March 21 • 17:25 18:00

Who: Matthew Bates, Stealth Security Startup & Suraj Deshmukh, Microsoft

Find on KubeCon Schedule 

Learn how Confidential Containers enhance the security of SPIRE servers, safeguarding sensitive signing keys against unauthorized access.

Confidential Containers for GPU Compute: Incorporating LLMs in a Lift-and-Shift Strategy for AI  

When: Thursday, March 21 • 16:30 17:05

Who: Zvonko Kaiser, NVIDIA

Find on KubeCon Schedule

An exploration of integrating confidential containers with GPU computing for AI/ML workloads, maintaining data confidentiality while leveraging computational power.

Additional Highlights

CRI-O Odyssey: Exploring New Frontiers in Container Runtimes

 An insight into the latest in container runtime technology, touching on Confidential Computing integration.

 Thursday, March 21 • 11:00 11:35

Towards a Cloud-Native, Scalable and Fault-Tolerant Platform for Digital Agriculture

A unique application of cloud-native technologies in agriculture, showcasing the potential of Kubernetes and Confidential Computing.

Wednesday, March 20 • 18:00 20:00

Confidential Computing at KubeCon

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2024 offers an opportunity to immerse yourself in the world of Cloud and Compute. Whether you’re a developer, IT professional, or business leader, these sessions provide a wealth of knowledge and a unique chance to advance your understanding of the technology at the Confidential Computing Consortium and its critical role in the future of cloud-native technologies.

Bookmark this page and plan your schedule to make the most of the Confidential Computing sessions at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2024. See you there!

Mar 06

The Evolution of Cybersecurity: From Early Threats to Modern Challenges

By Blog No Comments

Authored by Sal Kimmich

As we continue our journey through the world of Confidential Computing, it’s essential to understand the backdrop against which this technology has emerged. This week, we delve into the evolution of cybersecurity, tracing its journey from the early days of computing to the sophisticated landscape we navigate today.

The Early Days of Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity, in its infancy, was a game of cat and mouse between emerging technologies and the threats that shadowed them. The earliest computers, massive and isolated, faced minimal security concerns. However, as technology advanced and computers became interconnected, the need for robust cybersecurity measures became apparent.

The Birth of Computer Viruses and Antivirus Software

The 1980s marked a significant turning point with the advent of the first computer viruses. Among these early threats was the Brain virus, which led to the creation of the first antivirus software in 1987. This was a pivotal moment, signaling the start of an ongoing battle against cyber threats.

The Internet Era and Its Challenges

The explosion of the internet in the 1990s and early 2000s brought cybersecurity to the forefront. The connectivity that empowered businesses and individuals also opened up new vulnerabilities. Viruses, worms, and later, sophisticated malware, posed significant risks, leading to the development of more advanced cybersecurity solutions.

The Rise of Cybercrime

As technology continued to evolve, so did the nature of threats. Cybercrime became a lucrative business, with hackers targeting not just computers but entire networks. Data breaches, identity theft, and ransomware attacks became common, causing significant financial and reputational damage to individuals and organizations.

The Current Landscape: A Complex Battlefield

Today, cybersecurity is an intricate field, encompassing everything from endpoint security to network defenses, and now, Confidential Computing. The threats have become more sophisticated, leveraging AI and machine learning, making proactive and advanced defense mechanisms essential.

Confidential Computing: A New Frontier in Cybersecurity

This brings us to Confidential Computing – a response to the modern need for enhanced data protection. As we’ve seen, cybersecurity is no longer just about preventing unauthorized access; it’s about ensuring data integrity and confidentiality at every stage, including during processing.

Looking Ahead

The evolution of cybersecurity is a testament to the ever-changing landscape of technology. As we continue to innovate, so too will the methods to protect our digital assets. Confidential Computing is part of this ongoing evolution, representing the next step in securing our digital future.

A Fun Reminder of Our Journey

Reflecting on this evolution, it’s fascinating to think that the journey from the Brain virus to today’s sophisticated cyber threats led to the birth of an entire industry. The first antivirus software in 1987 was just the beginning of what has become a critical and ever-evolving field.

Stay Tuned

Next week, we’ll dive deeper into the world of Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), a cornerstone of Confidential Computing. Join us as we explore how TEEs provide a secure space for data processing, marking a significant advancement in our quest for cybersecurity.

Explore the four-part series on Confidential Computing—a vital innovation for data privacy and security. Dive in now!

Part I –  Introduction to Confidential Computing:  A Year Long Exploration

Part III– Basics of Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs):  The Heart of Confidential Computing

Part IV– Collaborative Security:  The Role of Open Source in Confidential Computing

Feb 27

Introduction to Confidential Computing: A Year-Long Exploration

By Blog No Comments

Authored by Sal Kimmich

Welcome to the first blog Confidential Computing Consortium blog series to help new members navigate the transformative landscape of Confidential Computing, a crucial advancement in safeguarding data privacy and security.

What is Confidential Computing?

Confidential Computing is a cutting-edge approach that protects data in use by encrypting it within Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs). These secure areas of a processor ensure data is inaccessible to other applications, the operating system, and even cloud providers, safeguarding sensitive information from unauthorized access or leaks during processing. This technology is foundational in addressing the critical challenge of protecting data throughout its lifecycle, offering a new dimension of security for our digital world.

The Significance

In an era where data privacy concerns are paramount, Confidential Computing emerges as a vital solution. It enables businesses and individuals to compute with confidence, knowing their data remains secure and private, even in shared infrastructure environments. This technology fosters trust and facilitates secure data collaboration, unlocking new possibilities in cloud computing and beyond.

Our Journey Ahead

This blog series will explore these topics (and many more!):

1. The Evolution of Confidential Computing

2. Insights into Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs)

3. The Vital Role of Open Source in Confidential Computing

We’ll examine its transformative impact across industries, its pivotal role in emerging technologies, and how it underpins secure, data-driven innovations. This exploration is designed for tech enthusiasts, industry professionals, and anyone curious about the next frontier in digital security.

Learn more with Special Interest Groups (SIGs)

The Confidential Computing Consortium (CCC) champions this technology through collaborative efforts, including Special Interest Groups (SIGs). These SIGs are integral to: SIG meetings are open to everyone, emphasizing the consortium’s commitment to inclusivity and collaboration. There’s no membership requirement to join these discussions, making it an excellent opportunity for anyone interested in contributing to or learning more about confidential computing.

Be Part of the Movement

By joining our journey, you become a part of a community dedicated to advancing confidential computing. This series promises to deepen your understanding and provide resources that can be easily shared for collaborative efforts driving this technology forward.

Stay tuned as we reveal the fascinating world of Confidential Computing, and it’s critical role in privacy-enhancing technologies. If there is any topic you would love us to cover in this series, we’d love to hear from you! Reach out to skimmich@contractor.linuxfoundation.org. 

Explore the four-part series on Confidential Computing—a vital innovation for data privacy and security. Dive in now!

Part II – The Evolution of Cybersecurity:  From Early Threats to Modern Challenges

Part III– Basics of Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs):  The Heart of Confidential Computing

Part IV– Collaborative Security:  The Role of Open Source in Confidential Computing

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