Computer Security is essential to the operation of computer systems from the desktop PC to the mainframe; from the home internet terminal to the corporate intranet. Security ensures confidentiality, integrity, and availability that for instance helps us maintain our privacy, companies to protect their data, establish trust relationships for e-commerce, system operators prevent hackers from gaining access to their systems and internet providers ensure maximum reliability.

Security has been important to IBM for a very long time. RACF (access control) and DES (cryptography) emerged from IBM over 25 years ago and still in use having withstood the test of time. Pioneering work has been done in penetration testing, antivirus research, and tamperproof crypto hardware. More recent security research highlights are:

SINTRA - Distributing Trust on the Internet:
In times of malicious coordinated attacks by hackers or cyber terrorists, the need for intrusion tolerant systems is heightened. In particular, servers holding access keys are likely targets and to protect them, these are often replicated and distributed. To facilitate this, Research has developed SINTRA (Secure INtrusion-Tolerant Replication Architecture), a protocol suite for secure and fault-tolerant service replication in asynchronous networks such as the Internet. Using randomization, novel customized cryptographic tools, and optimistic methods, SINTRA provides the first practical protocols that do not rely on any timing assumption, while tolerating active coordinated attacks. This makes SINTRA the most stable and secure solution available today.

idemix: Privacy-enhanced PKI:
We have developed cryptographic protocols for an anonymous credential system (or pseudonym system) that we call idemix. Such a system consists of users and organizations. Organizations know the users only by pseudonyms. Different pseudonyms of the same user cannot be linked. Yet, an organization can issue a credential to a pseudonym, and the corresponding user can prove possession of this credential to another organization (who knows her by a different pseudonym), without revealing anything more than the fact that she owns such a credential. Idemix is provably secure, employing novel cryptographic algorithms, and at the same time the first system that is practical.

Matchbox: a highly secure environment:
Matchbox allows parties to share private/confidential information inside its highly secure environment by employing the IBM 4758, which is a FIPS 140-1 level-4 certified hardware security module (HSM). This level-4 certification is the highest attainable for an HSM. Matchbox not only provides a high level of security and authentication, it is also provides for architectural flexibility.

Partitioning Attacks on GSM Cards:
It is not enough to invent new systems, we must also try to break existing systems in order raise the standard for new ones. We describe a new class of side-channel attacks called "partitioning attacks" which can be used to break implementations with ad hoc side-channel protection. We illustrate a version of the attack on several implementations of COMP128, the popular GSM authentication algorithm that has been deployed by different service providers in several types of SIM cards, to retrieve the 128 bit key using as few as 7 chosen plaintexts. Such ad hoc countermeasures are systemic in implementations of cryptographic algorithms, such as COMP128, which require the use of large tables since there has been a mistaken belief that sound countermeasures require more resources than are available. To address this problem, we describe a new resource--efficient countermeasure for protecting table lookups in cryptographic implementations.

The MARS Cipher:
MARS is a shared-key (symmetric) block cipher, supporting 128-bit blocks and variable key size. It is designed to take advantage of the powerful operations supported in today's computers, resulting in a much improved security/performance tradeoff over existing ciphers. As a result, MARS offers better security than triple DES while running significantly faster than single DES. MARS was our submission to AES.

Theoretical Foundation of Quantum Information Processing:
We produce ground-breaking contributions and original key concepts in the nascent field of quantum computing. With the semiconductor industry approaching a degree of miniaturization where quantum effects will become important, people are contemplating the construction of workable quantum logic and communication devices. Furthermore, the need for secure communications has driven the investigation of quantum cryptography and quantum communication schemes that would be tamper proof.

Event Correlation for Tivoli:
The Zurich Correlation Engine (ZCE) is a compact, Java-based, fast real-time correlation engine. It supports a wide range of correlation requirements with maximum performance. Its unique "rule replication" function allows a single rule to automatically handle multiple instances of the same event signature. Its compact size makes it possible to deploy multiple, distributed correlation engines in an enterprise, allowing scalable correlation. As implemented in Tivoli Risk Manager, it correlates security information and risk alerts from firewalls, routers, networks, host- and application-based detection systems, desktops, and vulnerability scanning tools.

Security is a global problem and involves many aspects of science. We are involved in and publish at many key security conferences worldwide such as IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, Crypto, Eurocrypt, USENIX Security Symposium, Esorics and the ACM Conference on Computer and Communication Security. Furthermore other specialized workshops and conferences such as RAID, NSPW, ISC, and CHES. There exist relationships to many universities throughout the world from our research labs in five locations distributed on four continents.