Flexible remote attestation of pre-SNP SEV VMs using SGX enclaves

Abstract

We propose a protocol that explores a synergy between two TEE implementations: it brings SGX-like remote attestation to SEV VMs. We use the notion of a \emph{trusted guest owner}, implemented as an SGX enclave, to deploy, attest, and provision a SEV VM. This machine can, in turn, rely on the trusted owner to generate SGX-like attestation proofs on its behalf. Our protocol combines the application portability of SEV with the flexible remote attestation of SGX. We formalise our protocol and prove that it achieves the intended guarantees using the Tamarin prover. Moreover, we develop an implementation for our trusted guest owner together with example SEV machines, and put those together to demonstrate how our protocol can be used in practice; we use this implementation to evaluate our protocol in the context of creating \emph{accountable machine-learning models}. We also discuss how our protocol can be extended to provide a simple remote attestation mechanism for a heterogeneous infrastructure of trusted components.