Confidential Computing in the Cloud: An Overview

Major financial institutions like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan have employed these hardware-based trusted execution environments (TEEs) and reported a 50% reduction in data breaches and a 40% increase in customer trust. Daily, these companies do billions of transactions in the cloud, leveraging confidentiality computing to ensure the privacy and integrity of their sensitive data. Over the years, confidential computing has evolved significantly, and the emergence of technology to safeguard sensitive information from malicious insiders and external threats now encompasses advanced and complex cryptographic techniques and hardware innovations, offering robust security assurances for cloud-based operations. In this paper, we will talk about foundational technologies and implementation strategies for the core of confidential computing. We will explore benefits, including performance trade-offs and integration complexities. Furthermore, the paper will highlight real-world applications and use cases, showcasing how industries such as finance, healthcare, and government leverage confidential computing to enhance data security and complicate cloud environments.