At
RSA Conference this week in San Francisco, Intel reinforced its
commitment to security. At the event, leaders from Intel and its
ecosystem partners came together to discuss how the company is
addressing some of the toughest security challenges, including hybrid
workforces and an increase in connected devices. Intel's approach
remains steadfast, investing in unparalleled people, processes and
products to deliver security without sacrificing performance.
As
the cyber and network security landscapes continue to grow and evolve,
Intel's goal is to stay one step ahead by driving innovation across
products and research to help build strong security communities both
internally and externally. Intel's 2021 Product Security Report noted
that 93% of vulnerabilities addressed in Intel products were a direct
result of Intel's proactive investment in security assurance. Security
begins with Intel, and every component in the system - from software to
silicon and network to edge - plays its part to help secure data.
Security
is a team sport and addressing security challenges requires the entire
ecosystem to come together. Intel continues to engage with ecosystem and
government partners to advance the conversation on policies, best
practices, standards and public-private partnerships that advance
security and trust.
New Design Blueprint Enables Fast Deployment of Network Security Workloads
Offering an augmented approach to edge and cloud network security integration, the newly announced Intel NetSec Accelerator Reference Design will
enable improved network and security processing performance, while
reducing the overall infrastructure footprint for network and security
solution providers.
The
first-of-its-kind reference design is a highly efficient blueprint that
allows original design manufacturers to quickly build - and bring to
market - PCIe add-in cards featuring Intel QuickAssist Technology
(Intel QAT) acceleration and full Intel-based server functionality,
including orchestration and management. Ideal for IPsec, SSL/TLS,
firewall, SASE and analytics workloads, design-optimized cards can be
integrated by network and security vendors within their solutions to
expedite the integration of network and security functions and maximize
the capabilities of server infrastructure at the edge.
Ecosystem
partners are currently developing products based on the reference
design. This allows systems vendors, solutions integrators and end
customers broad choice and the ability to consolidate more network and
security workloads onto server platforms without increasing the use of
rack space. The reference design also allows development of solutions,
like software assets developed on Intel-based platforms, that may be
used without additional re-architecting, porting or compiling. Silicom
and F5 will be among the first to utilize the Intel NetSec Accelerator
Reference Design to offer integration and acceleration of networking and
security functions for rapid scale and time to market.
Project Circuit Breaker Expands with New Events
Following
this year's introduction of Project Circuit Breaker, Intel recently
completed its first two pilot events, "Camping with Tigers," and
"SGX-Guarden Party." This expansion of Intel's existing open Bug Bounty program brings
together a community of elite hackers to hunt bugs in firmware,
hypervisors, GPUs, chipsets and other hardware. Project Circuit Breaker
is part of Intel's effort to meet security researchers where they are
and create more meaningful engagement. Intel remains committed to
offering training to security researchers, exciting new hacking
challenges and opportunities to explore new and pre-release products, as
well as new collaborations with Intel hardware and software engineers.
More trainings and hacking challenges are on the horizon this summer,
starting with, "Alders and Seekers," where participants will test the
Intel NUC Kit including a 12th Gen Intel Core desktop processor with
the Intel vPro Platform, and "Trusted Crossings," which will target a
new Intel technology. For researchers who are interested in
participating in these upcoming events, applications are now being
accepted on the Project Circuit Breaker page.
Hardware-based Security Starts with Intel
In March, Intel announced the latest Intel vPro platform,
powered by 12th Gen Intel® Core processors and built for business
productivity. This momentum continued at RSAC, where Intel showcased its
built-in security capabilities enabling hardware, software and service
providers to protect against threats using innovative methods. Intel®
Threat Detection Technology (Intel TDT), part of Intel Hardware
Shield's suite of advanced capabilities on Intel vPro and also available
on Intel Core platforms, equips endpoint detection and response (EDR)
solutions, such as ESET and CrowdStrike,
with CPU heuristics for advanced memory scanning, cryptojacking and
ransomware detection. With nearly a billion Intel TDT-capable PCs in the
market, these are the only CPU-based malware behavior-monitoring
capabilities in market that go beyond signature and file-based
techniques.
Intel continues to collaborate with partners such as Microsoft on
enhancing security for Windows 11 and beyond, including the integration
of Intel TDT into Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. From power-on
through boot-up, Windows 11 security protections from Intel are part of a
comprehensive strategy based on hardware layers of security, from chip
to cloud. Today, 12th Gen Intel Core processor-based business client
platforms deliver highly effective, low-overhead security protections
for Windows 11 and the applications and data that run on it.
Additionally, Intel and Dell have
been partnering for decades in the commercial device space, employing a
holistic approach to security through software-based protections,
silicon-based protections from Intel and hardware-based capabilities
that help defend against attacks targeting the deepest levels of a
device. This co-enablement relationship is founded on the commitment to
keeping commercial customer networks secure.
Evolution of the Digital Supply Chain
Security
challenges in supply chains have become more sophisticated over time,
especially when considering the built-in complexity of modern device
supply chains where multiple parties can have vastly different security
processes, tools and abilities. Intel's supply chain strategy covers
several elements including B2B vulnerability disclosure managed in a
coordinated fashion with Intel's ecosystem partners to ensure visibility
into released mitigations and guidance. It also includes traceability
and digital transparency supported by Intel Transparent Supply Chain that
encompasses the tools, policies and procedures that help provide
visibility and traceability of hardware components, firmware and
systems.
To
keep pace with the changing security landscape, supply chain strategies
must evolve to augment physical supply chain security with expanded digital supply chain security.
These new capabilities would expand supply chain protections to
recording and tracking key device information, including manufacturing
data and subsequent modifications across its lifecycle.
Confidential Computing Investments Accelerate
Confidential computing is on the rise, as demonstrated last month at Intel Vision with the introduction of Project Amber,
a service-based security implementation of an independent trust
authority. Project Amber will help provide organizations with remote
verification of the trustworthiness of a compute asset in cloud, edge
and on-premise environments, and help drive forward adoption of
confidential computing for the broader industry.
Customers like BeeKeeper AI are
also using Intel Software Guard Extensions (Intel® SGX) technology and
Microsoft Azure's confidential computing infrastructure to provide a
zero-trust platform. It enables an AI algorithm to help compute against
multiple real-world clinical datasets without compromising the privacy
of the data or the intellectual property of the algorithm model, while
also accelerating healthcare AI development and deployment innovation by
more than 30% to 40% when compared with the current method.
As workloads expand from the cloud to the edge, it's more important than ever to secure sensitive data. Lockheed Martin Hardened Security for Intel processors is a technology solution that can obfuscate communications and images using Intel SGX and Edgeless Systems is
unleashing the power of confidentiality through connected cars. Rooted
in silicon, Intel hardware and software-based security creates a trusted
foundation to help protect data and support multiparty collaboration
while helping maintain data privacy and compliance.