Confidential computing
Confidential computing
How can you process sensitive data without the risk of a leak? Darien Graham-Smith looks at trusted execution environments
Is “confidential computing” the same thing as encryption?
It is not. Encryption protects data when it’s at rest or being transmitted across a network. But when you want to do actual work with the data – such as loading it into an application, analysing or updating it – it normally needs to be decrypted first. That creates a potential avenue of vulnerability where your sensitive information could leak or be stolen.
So what can we do? This sounds like an insoluble problem.
A technique called homomorphic encryption does exist that lets you process data without exposing its content – but it’s too complex for general business use. A more practical approach is to work with confidential data inside a “trusted execution environment”, or TEE for short.