From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Feb 23 19:04:01 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7703116A407 for ; Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:04:01 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from pieter@thedarkside.nl) Received: from mail.thelostparadise.com (cl-92.ede-01.nl.sixxs.net [IPv6:2001:7b8:2ff:5b::2]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 486B413C4E8 for ; Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:04:01 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from pieter@thedarkside.nl) Received: from [192.168.1.10] (s55915f73.adsl.wanadoo.nl [85.145.95.115]) by mail.thelostparadise.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4B16561C3A for ; Sat, 23 Feb 2008 20:04:00 +0100 (CET) Message-ID: <47C06E1F.5020308@thedarkside.nl> Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 20:03:59 +0100 From: Pieter de Boer User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.6 (X11/20071105) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: hackers@freebsd.org References: <20080223010856.7244.qmail@smasher.org> <47C068B5.2090000@thedarkside.nl> <20080223185620.GA98105@eos.sc1.parodius.com> In-Reply-To: <20080223185620.GA98105@eos.sc1.parodius.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Subject: Re: Security Flaw in Popular Disk Encryption Technologies X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:04:01 -0000 Jeremy Chadwick wrote: > It's interesting that you classified this as a "feature" (in quotes), > because there's nothing "modern" about said "feature". This issue has > existed since the beginning of RAM chip engineering; I can even confirm > this "feature" exists on old video game consoles such as the Nintendo > and Super Nintendo (where there were strict guidelines put in place by > Nintendo, requiring developers to initialise certain areas of memory > and certain memory-mapped I/O registers during hard or soft resets). I shouldnt've used the word 'modern', then. > Proper software should be memset() or bzero()'ing memory space it > mallocs. I've gotten in the habit of doing this for years, purely as a > safety net. If said software doesn't do this, it's very likely > succeptable. That is not relevant to the issue. The issue is that the keys are in memory when the encrypted filesystem is in use. The keys can be read by pulling and reinserting the power plug and restarting into a tool that can dump memory (or by placing the memory modules in another system). The keys to encrypted volumes can be found in this dump, leading to a compromise of the data. -- Pieter