Confidential Computing
Confidential Computing is a security paradigm that protects data in use by performing computations in a hardware-based, isolated execution environment called a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE). It ensures that sensitive data remains encrypted and inaccessible to other processes, the operating system, or cloud providers while being processed. This approach addresses the 'data in use' vulnerability, complementing encryption for data at rest and in transit.
Developers should learn Confidential Computing when building applications that handle sensitive data in untrusted environments, such as multi-tenant cloud platforms, edge computing, or regulated industries like healthcare and finance. It is crucial for use cases like secure multi-party computation, privacy-preserving machine learning, and protecting intellectual property in software, as it prevents unauthorized access during processing, even from privileged insiders or compromised infrastructure.