Secure FPGA as a Service — Towards Secure Data Processing by Physicalizing the Cloud

Securely processing data in the cloud is still a difficult problem, even with homomorphic encryption and other privacy preserving schemes. Hardware solutions provide additional layers of security and greater performance over their software alternatives. However by definition the cloud should be flexible and adaptive, often viewed as abstracting services from products. By creating services reliant on custom hardware, the core essence of the cloud is lost. FPGAs bridge this gap between software and hardware with programmable logic, allowing the cloud to remain abstract. FPGA as a Service (FaaS) has been proposed for a greener cloud, but not for secure data processing. This paper explores the possibility of Secure FaaS in the cloud for privacy preserving data processing, describes the technologies required, identifies use cases, and highlights potential challenges.