Slice & Dice: Privacy-Preserving Layered Attestation via Active Memory Introspection

Abstract

: The rapid adoption of dynamic Payload Managers enables portable, platform-agnostic execution across the cloud/edge continuum. However, these complex execution layers, even when embedded within a Trusted Ex-ecution Environment (TEE), significantly expand the attack surface of the Trusted Computing Base (TCB). Existing layered attestation schemes typically combat this using static, load-time measurements of payloads. Yet, recent vulnerabilities demonstrate that static checks are insufficient to prevent attackers from gaining privileged execution rights while avoiding detection. Slice and Dice proposes a layered attestation architecture for 3-layer systems, in which a minimal and highly privileged programmable firmware layer (Layer 0) continuously performs dynamic memory introspection on the untrusted Payload Manager layer (Layer 1). By inspecting ELF segments during execution, the firmware can detect code modifications in real-time. To complete the cycle of Remote Attestation (RA) and provide evidence to an external verifier in a privacy-preserving manner, we couple the introspection mechanism with Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP) utilizing BBS anonymous credentials.