VeriCount: Verifiable Resource Accounting Using Hardware and Software Isolation

In cloud computing, where clients are billed based on the consumed resources for outsourced tasks, both the cloud providers and the clients have the incentive to manipulate claims about resource usage. Both desire an accurate and verifiable resource accounting system, which is neutral and can be trusted to refute any disputes. In this work, we present VeriCount—a verifiable resource accounting system coupled with refutable billing support for Linux container-based applications. To protect VeriCount logic, we propose a novel approach called self-accounting that combines hardware-based isolation guarantees from trusted computing mechanisms and software fault isolation techniques. The self-accounting engine in VeriCount leverages security features present in trusted computing solutions, such as Intel SGX, to measure user CPU time, memory, I/O bytes and network bandwidth while simultaneously detecting resource usage inflation attacks. We claim three main results. First, VeriCount incurs an average performance overhead of 3.62% and 16.03% over non-accounting but SGX-compatible applications in hardware and simulation mode respectively. Next, it contributes only an additional 542 lines of code to the trusted computing base. Lastly, it generates highly accurate, fine-grained resource accounting, with no discernible difference to the resource measuring tool available with the OS.