# What is Attestation #### What is Attestation? **Attestation** is a cryptographic process that produces **verifiable evidence** about the integrity and identity of a computing environment. In the context of **Confidential Computing**, attestation allows a third party to verify that: * The workload is executing inside a **genuine Confidential Virtual Machine (CVM)**. * The CVM is running on **authentic Trusted Execution Environment (TEE)** hardware (e.g. Intel TDX or AMD SEV). * The environment is running a **specific, expected software stack**—down to the exact Docker container image. #### Attestation in SecretVM Within **SecretVM**, attestation is foundational to trust and decentralization. It ensures that: * The VM is **built from open-source, independently auditable components** (including the kernel, rootfs, and runtime). * A particular **Docker container**, defined by the user, is the actual workload running inside the VM. * No tampering has occurred at any stage of the boot process or workload initialization. The attestation process produces a **quote**, which is submitted to an **on-chain Key Management System (KMS)** contract on Secret Network. This quote is verified on-chain, allowing **confidential keys to be released** only to trusted, verified workloads. > In essence, attestation bridges **privacy with verifiability**, making SecretVM workloads secure, trusted, and provably confidential. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.scrt.network/secret-network-documentation/secretvm-confidential-virtual-machines/attestation/what-is-attestation.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.