Trusted Computing Group Publishes Open Specification for Mobile Phone Security

October 4, 2006 // Published as a news service by IHS

The Trusted Computing Group (TCG) Mobile Phone Work Group published a draft Mobile Trusted Module  (MTM)specification. The specification will enable the development of security, privacy and reduced risk of loss and theft for mobile phone users and providers of handsets and services.

"Attacks on mobile phones, including viruses, spyware and spam and the loss of personal and financial information or the handset itself clearly will increase as phones increasingly become repositories of critical information and transactions for users," said Iain Gillot, president and founder of iGR (formerly iGillot Research).

"By working together and establishing standards, the mobile industry can move more quickly and efficiently to embed security mechanisms into phones. More security at the platform level can only help the industry continue to offer the services, handset features and content that users want."

The MTM specification assumes the implementation of a mobile phone as a set of trusted engines or places that manipulate data within the device. Each engine can be trusted to report its state accurately so its trustworthiness can be established. The specification envisions that phones will include multiple trusted engines, each addressing specific functions including the device, cellular service, applications and user services.

Each engine will have access to trusted services that measure code modules and stores measurements in the MTM, a protected area of the phone. The MTM can be implemented in a number of ways since the TCG specification defines functionality but not implementation. For example, the MTM could take the form of a discrete silicon chip or a system-on-a-chip implementation. The form factor will be determined by vendors and their customers.

The draft MTM specification includes key attributes of the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) specification. For example, the specification provides for protection of sensitive information, immune against virtual or physical tampering. These areas typically can store digital keys, certificates and passwords and support integrity checks of the device to measure its health and whether its state has changed.

Implementation of the draft MTM specification is complimentary with existing mobile phone components including the subscriber identity module (SIM), universal subscriber identity module (USIM) and universal integrated circuit card (UICC) cards and with specifications from industry organizations such as 3rd Generation Partnership Project, Open Mobile Alliance, Open Mobile Terminal Platform and the Mobile Industry Processor Interface Alliance to ensure that the work of TCG is complementary and extends security benefits rather than reinventing them.

Specific applications for trusted mobile phones based on this draft TCG specification include:

• Protecting user data and identity information and device identity information.
• Protecting content that might be downloaded for patches, new applications or other use.
• Enabling mobile payment and mobile ticketing.

Products based on the specifications are expected to start development soon.

Source: Trusted Computing Group (TNG).