The state of Trusted Computing

The other day the Aberdeen Group released a research paper discussing the state of Trusted Computing.

While just about all enterprise class PCs, like the Dell Latitude series, today come equipped with the necessary hardware few enterprises have actually activated the technology. Aberdeen concludes that more education about this technology needs to be made.

Trusted computing is an industry standard to make personal computers more secure through a dedicated hardware chip, called a Trusted Platform Module (TPM).

The TPM enhances the security of critical capabilities such as:

Login
Email
Web access
Protection of data

Along with the proliferation of mobile computing, electronic communication, and the sophistication of wired and wireless networks come more sophisticated attacks and an increased vulnerability of the most important asset to an enterprise — the data. Critical incidents are occurring day-by-day including identity theft, information leakage, data destruction, sensitive data exposure due to lost or stolen notebook computers and unauthorized access to corporate networks. In many countries, government legislation is mandating increased security around sensitive data for specified vertical industries. With the increased vulnerability, businesses and consumers are also demanding a computing environment that is more trusted, private, safe and secure.

The technical industry is responding to the challenge raised by these issues with standards-based security solutions specified by the Trusted Computing Group (TCG). At the lowest level, the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) protects secrets in hardware that would otherwise be vulnerable in software.