3 ms·

>C) If you're a target of an attack the encryption keys are unlikely to present a significant challenge as attackers will choose easier alternate vectors. Abso

>C) If you're a target of an attack the encryption keys are unlikely to present a significant challenge as attackers will choose easier alternate vectors. Absolutely true and none need look further than how the best of the best (NSA/Equation Group) handle such hurdles....they install malware on the computer to grab your keystrokes. Though I think if you have mission critical data you would be wise to never connect your machine with encrypted data to a network, ever. You need to have two machines. One which stores the encrypted data, custom built with trusted hardware. No wifi, no bluetooth, no USB, no cd rom etc.

hermitdev 7y ago
There are other novel means to leap air gaps. I remember from a few years ago a technique using ultrasonic by, IIRC, spinning a harddrive at certain intervals and listening in from a standard PC mic. Also, a stripped down computer like you describe is going to be of marginal utility. How do you get the sensitive data in or out? Transcribe by hand? Might as well write your secrets in a code on a piece of paper and lock it in a vault. Airgapping by removing CD/USB/network, you arent really increasing security. Youre just freezing the machine in a point in time with no security updates or other useful means of actually handling sensitive materials. One could argue this actually makes it easier to exploit given sufficient physical access. Also, NSA using keyloggers doesn't make them best of the best (not that they arent good at what they do, just saying key loggers is a small barrier and very common and easy to use - easy enough I was using them as a kid in the 80s). They may have superior ways of achieving it, such as supply chain attacks, but key loggers have been around pretty much since computers have existed.

3 ms·

>C) If you're a target of an attack the encryption keys are unlikely to present a significant challenge as attackers will choose easier alternate vectors. Abso

by newguy1234 7y ago

hermitdev 7y ago
There are other novel means to leap air gaps. I remember from a few years ago a technique using ultrasonic by, IIRC, spinning a harddrive at certain intervals and listening in from a standard PC mic. Also, a stripped down computer like you describe is going to be of marginal utility. How do you get the sensitive data in or out? Transcribe by hand? Might as well write your secrets in a code on a piece of paper and lock it in a vault. Airgapping by removing CD/USB/network, you arent really increasing security. Youre just freezing the machine in a point in time with no security updates or other useful means of actually handling sensitive materials. One could argue this actually makes it easier to exploit given sufficient physical access. Also, NSA using keyloggers doesn't make them best of the best (not that they arent good at what they do, just saying key loggers is a small barrier and very common and easy to use - easy enough I was using them as a kid in the 80s). They may have superior ways of achieving it, such as supply chain attacks, but key loggers have been around pretty much since computers have existed.