Lateral Thinking for Trustworthy Apps

The growing computerization of critical infrastructure as well as the pervasiveness of computing in everyday life has led to increased interest in secure application development. We observe a flurry of new security technologies like ARM TrustZone and Intel SGX, but a lack of a corresponding architectural vision. We are convinced that point solutions are not sufficient to address the overall challenge of secure system design. In this paper, we outline our take on a trusted component ecosystem of small individual building blocks with strong isolation. In our view, applications should no longer be designed as massive stacks of vertically layered frameworks, but instead as horizontal aggregates of mutually isolated components that collaborate across machine boundaries to provide a service. Lateral thinking is needed to make secure systems going forward.