Bookshelf

With the ongoing digitalization, not only the number of IT systems is increasing in many domains, but also the amount of software and hardware that forms the trusted computing base of an application. Applications in industrial systems, infrastructure and consumer electronics rely on the security of these systems. Emerging security technologies try to mitigate the risk of insecure software and hardware by embedding secure components into these untrusted systems. AMD introduced the AMD Secure Processor to provide a trusted execution environment for critical operations. This thesis comprehensively analyzes the undocumented and largely unknown security co-processor and discovers its inner workings. It aims to find out if it is able to keep its promise – or if it opens up another attack vector.