LoKz Posted February 22, 2008 Share Posted February 22, 2008 Disk encryption may not be secure enough, new research findsVideoComputer scientists have discovered a novel way to bypass the encryption used in programs like Microsoft's BitLocker and Apple's FileVault and then view the contents of supposedly secure files.In a paper (PDF) published Thursday that could prompt a rethinking of how to protect sensitive data, the researchers describe how they can extract the contents of a computer's memory and discover the secret encryption key used to scramble files. (I tested these claims by giving them a MacBook with FileVault; here's a slideshow.)"There seems to be no easy remedy for these vulnerabilities," the researchers say. "Simple software changes are likely to be ineffective; hardware changes are possible but will require time and expense; and today's Trusted Computing technologies appear to be of little help because they cannot protect keys that are already in memory. The risk seems highest for laptops, which are often taken out in public in states that are vulnerable to our attacks. These risks imply that disk encryption on laptops may do less good than widely believed."The nine researchers listed on the paper include San Francisco-area programmers Jacob Appelbaum and Seth Schoen and a team of Princeton University computer scientists such as graduate students J. Alex Halderman and Nadia Heninger and professor Ed Felten. The paper is titled "Lest We Remember: Cold Boot Attacks on Encryption Keys." Source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaNeBiT Posted February 23, 2008 Share Posted February 23, 2008 scary stuff!!one point dohif u only have 512mb of ram and the os uses say 50%then there only going to get 256mb of stuff back, so is it worth it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-Spyke- Posted February 23, 2008 Share Posted February 23, 2008 New macbook Air is not affected by this because the ram is soldered straight to the motherboard. :ph34r: afaik should be the same with ASUS eePCs as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dock98 Posted February 23, 2008 Share Posted February 23, 2008 I'm not taking my laptop to any public place.this is scary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myidisbb Posted February 25, 2008 Share Posted February 25, 2008 New macbook Air is not affected by this because the ram is soldered straight to the motherboard. :) afaik should be the same with ASUS eePCs as well.nothing like not being able to update Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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