A Practical Threat Model and Security Guide for TEE Workloads

Trusted Execution Environments are used in Ethereum infrastructure for block builders, sequencers, coprocessors, and oracles. Every TEE-backed service relies on remote attestation. However, a valid attestation quote provides evidence about the launch state, rather than the runtime state. Igor Grachev presents a practical threat model for confidential workloads using Intel TDX as a concrete example during Devcon. The discussion covers what attestation does not cover, what a malicious cloud operator can observe or manipulate, potential design failures, how securing confidential VM images differs, and a minimum deployment checklist for securing TEE workloads.