Blog Posts

Opaque: Secure Apache Spark SQL

Wenting Zheng blog, Security, Systems

As enterprises move to cloud-based analytics, the risk of cloud security breaches poses a serious threat. Encrypting data at rest and in transit is a major first step. However, data must still be decrypted in memory for processing, exposing it to any attacker who can observe memory contents. This is a challenging problem because security usually implies a tradeoff between performance and functionality. Cryptographic approaches like fully homomorphic encryption provide full functionality to a system, but are extremely slow. Systems like CryptDB utilize lighter cryptographic primitives to provide a practical database, but are limited in functionality. Recent developments in trusted hardware enclaves (such as Intel SGX) provide a much needed alternative. These hardware enclaves provide hardware-enforced shielded execution that allows…