Funny how things come around – with growing data breaches and increasing security concerns, all of a sudden “trust” has become kind of hot. Well, here at TCG, we’ve been talking about trust for a long time. TCG’s first efforts, in fact, were around the Trusted Platform Module, or TPM, which when included into various endpoints or servers, provided a new level of trust and security for keys, certificates and passwords.
Based on industry feedback and to support evolving use cases and other standards, TCG released an updated TPM blueprint for chipmakers and others to use. You can find the TPM 2.0 info here.
Generally, it takes developers and makers of chips and supporting products a bit to figure out these kinds of new specifications and to develop products that support them. As expected, that is happening with the TPM 2.0 specification. Just last week, TCG member and long-time TPM chip maker Infineon announced that it has started providing its chip that supports the 2.0 specification. Even more importantly, that new TPM chip is being used in a device right now – the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 tablets.
According to a post on this topic, the Surface Pro 3 is often used in aviation and other commercial environments. In these kinds of applications, security is critical – not just a “check box” feature. From that post, “…It has been observed that devices which use built-in TPM are better equipped for verifying authentication, and protecting data and user identities, thereby, holistically improving the integrity of the network. Infineon’s latest offering, OPTIGA TPM, is in sync with the company’s long-term goal of providing trusted computing services by fostering “Root of Trust” security applications. Management believes that the new application will not only enhance the security standards of Surface Pro 3 tablets, but also improve customer satisfaction.”
Membership in the Trusted Computing Group is your key to participating with fellow industry stakeholders in the quest to develop and promote trusted computing technologies.
Standards-based Trusted Computing technologies developed by TCG members now are deployed in enterprise systems, storage systems, networks, embedded systems, and mobile devices and can help secure cloud computing and virtualized systems.
Trusted Computing Group announced that its TPM 2.0 (Trusted Platform Module) Library Specification was approved as a formal international standard under ISO/IEC (the International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission). TCG has 90+ specifications and guidance documents to help build a trusted computing environment.