BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:Data::ICal 0.24 BEGIN:VEVENT DESCRIPTION: 'Title: The Enclave is Lying to You: Breaking TEE Trust Boun daries\n Through Boot-Time State\n Tags: DEF CON Official Talk | Demo 💻 | Tool 🛠\n When: Saturday\, Aug 8\, 14:00 - 14:59 PDT\n Where: LVCCW Level 1 Hall 3 906 (Main Track 3) and DCTV-3 - [1]Map\n\n Descrip tion:\n Confidential computing on cloud TEEs: Nitro Enclaves\, SEV-SNP\, and TDX\n promises that a fully compromised host cannot reach into a\n hardware-isolated enclave. The cryptographic attestation story holds.\n The deployment story does not.\n\n This talk demonstrates attacks that bypass TEE isolation without\n touching the enclave image. We target th e inputs an enclave trusts at\n boot: cloud object storage\, host-suppli ed environment variables\, and\n KMS keys whose policies forget to enfor ce attestation. None are\n covered by attestation. All reach inside.\n\n We demonstrate remote code execution as root inside a Nitro Enclave\n with a single s3:PutObject permission. No host access. No SSH. One\n fi le upload containing a path traversal\, one boot cycle\, and the\n encla ve executes attacker-controlled code.\n\n From inside we intercept KMS d ecrypts live to extract the database\n encryption key in plaintext\, exf iltrate the enclave's IAM credentials\,\n and establish persistence acro ss reboots without re-exploitation - all\n while PCR measurements remain unchanged and attestation reports a\n healthy enclave.\n\n We release an open-source auditing tool\, walk through which defenses\n held\, and provide a hardening checklist for any team running workloads\n inside T EEs.\n\n The enclave isn't broken. The way we deploy it is.\n\n AWS\, "AWS Nitro Enclaves User Guide\,"\n https://docs.aws.amazon.com/enclaves /latest/user/nitro-enclave.html\n AWS\, "Cryptographic Attestation with AWS KMS for Nitro Enclaves\,"\n https://docs.aws.amazon.com/kms/latest/d eveloperguide/services-nitro-enclaves.html\n A. Tsow\, "Attacking Confid ential Computing: A Survey of TEE\n Exploitation Techniques\," IEEE S&P Workshop on Offensive Technologies\n (WOOT)\, 2024 NCC Group\, "Public R eport - AWS Nitro System Security\n Review\," 2023\, https://research.nc cgroup.com/2023/04/ Trail of Bits\,\n "Security Assessment of AWS Nitro Enclaves\," 2022 MITRE ATT&CK\, "Cloud\n Matrix - Initial Access / Valid Accounts\,"\n https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1078/004/ J. Aas et al.\,\n "Understanding TEE Trust Models in Cloud Deployments\," USENIX S ecurity\n Symposium\, 2023 OWASP\, "Path Traversal\,"\n https://owasp. org/www-community/attacks/Path_Traversal AWS\, "Instance\n Metadata Serv ice Version 2 (IMDSv2)\,"\n https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/Us erGuide/configuring-instance-metadata-service.html\n Apache Thrift Proje ct\, "Thrift Binary Protocol Specification\,"\n https://github.com/apach e/thrift/blob/master/doc/specs/thrift-binary-protocol.md\n\n SpeakerBio: Sandeep "pyro" Jayashankar\, Independent Researcher\n\n Sandeep Jayash ankar is a security researcher specializing in offensive\n security and adversarial simulations. His work spans AWS\, Azure\, and\n GCP environm ents\, with current research focused on trusted execution\n environment exploitation\, confidential computing trust boundaries\, and\n the secur ity of AI/ML systems deployed in cloud-native architectures.\n This rese arch was conducted under an authorized adversarial simulation\n program. He approaches security research from a defender's\n perspective: every offensive finding ships with a concrete\, auditable\n control that defen ders can deploy. He previously presented at RSA\n Conference 2025.\n\n '\n\n 1. #LVCCW_Level1_Hall3\n\n\n DTEND:20260808T215900Z DTSTART:20260808T210000Z LOCATION:DEF CON Talks - LVCCW Level 1 Hall 3 906 (Main Track 3) and DCTV-3 SUMMARY:The Enclave is Lying to You: Breaking TEE Trust Boundaries Through Boot-Time State END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR