iExec Participates in Google Confidential Computing Program
14 July 2020 — Today, Google announced its Confidential Computing Program Beta Release. iExec is proud to have joined in this program and have been working on the project since the alpha release. iExec will offer expertise in the context of confidential computing with blockchain, and will present work and use cases alongside Google in the future.
“We are extremely excited to have been involved in the Google Confidential Computing Program since the Alpha release, Google Confidential Computing helps address our main concerns on privacy-preserving and trusted execution in iExec Blockchain-based off-chain computing. We are looking forward to further collaborations with Google to come in the near future” — Lei Zhang, Director of Information Security, iExec.
What is ‘Confidential Computing’?
Confidential Computing (CC) involves data security using ‘Trusted Execution Environments’ (TEEs) or encryption mechanisms to protect data in use during computation. Execution logic runs inside TEE hardware, ensuring it cannot be tampered with or manipulated. And guaranteeing trusted execution. Confidential Computing is becoming increasingly more important as companies start to move more of their sensitive data to the public cloud and the edge. CC opens up new opportunities that were not possible before, due to privacy, security, and regulatory requirements.
Confidential Computing in Blockchain: Privacy preservation
One of the most important roles of Confidential Computing in the context of blockchain is the fact that it is privacy-preserving. As the core of Blockchain is its decentralization, sensitive data running across the decentralized networks can be easily inspected by any privileged user of a computing node in the network. CC is currently one of the only ways to protect the security of this data in use. Sensitive data will always stay in an encrypted status while being passed through the decentralized network, with the decryption of the data happening exclusively when inside the TEE, whose security is guaranteed by the CPU hardware.
About Google Confidential Computing:
Google Confidential VMs are a breakthrough technology that allow customers to encrypt their most sensitive data in the cloud while it’s being processed. Google Cloud’s approach allows customers to encrypt data in use without making any code changes to their applications or having to compromise on performance. Confidential Computing can unlock scenarios that previously have not been possible. Organizations will be able to collaborate, all while preserving the confidentiality of their data.
About iExec:
iExec has developed the first decentralized marketplace for cloud computing resources. Blockchain is used to organize a market network where users can monetize their computing power, applications, and datasets. By providing on-demand access to cloud computing resources, iExec supports compute-intensive applications in fields such as AI, big data, healthcare, rendering, or FinTech. Anyone can be rewarded in RLC tokens for contributing resources to the network.
One of the main strengths of iExec lies in trusted off-chain computing. In partnership with Intel, iExec has released the first-ever ‘trusted compute’ solution for blockchain (TEE using Intel SGX). iExec is working with various organizations and consortiums with the goal of providing scalable, secure and easy access to the services, datasets, and computing resources.
Read more on iExec and Confidential/Trusted Compute:
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