What Does This Built-In Technology Protect?

About this interactive

Devices come with a set of built-in security technologies, and the lesson names five. Three of them are about keys and cryptography: the trusted platform module (TPM), the hardware security module (HSM) and the secure enclave all generate, store and use cryptographic keys, with a lot of overlap in what they do. One is about data at rest: a self-encrypting drive encrypts everything saved to it in hardware, the same goal as full disk encryption. One is about program memory: address space layout randomization (ASLR) loads a program at an unpredictable memory address so its buffers are hard to find. The lessons that follow take each technology in turn. Here the point is to recognize the technology and what it is for. To sort a card, ask what the technology protects: keys and cryptographic work, data sitting on a drive, or a running program in memory.

What you'll learn

Identify common built-in security technologies (TPM, HSM, secure enclave, self-encrypting drive, ASLR) and sort each by whether it protects keys and cryptography, data at rest, or program memory

Aligned to

CompTIA Security+

1.4 Explain the importance of using appropriate cryptographic solutions.

2.5 Explain the purpose of mitigation techniques used to secure the enterprise.

Key terms

Trusted Platform Module: Trusted Platform Module is a dedicated hardware security chip embedded in devices that provides a hardware root of trust for secure boot, cryptographic key storage, and platform attestation, protecting sensitive keys from software-level compromise.
Hardware Security Module: A Hardware Security Module is a tamper-resistant physical device that safeguards and manages cryptographic keys, performs encryption operations, and provides a hardened environment for certificate authority operations and high-assurance key storage.
Secure Enclave: An isolated, hardware-based execution environment within a processor that protects sensitive data and cryptographic operations from the main operating system.
Self-encrypting Drive: Self-encrypting Drive is a storage device with built-in hardware encryption that automatically encrypts all written data using an embedded key, providing data-at-rest protection without OS overhead.
Address Space Layout Randomization: ASLR is a memory protection technique that randomizes the base addresses of processes and libraries at load time to prevent attackers from reliably reaching exploit targets in memory.

Topics

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