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I guess the interesting thing for a VeraCrypt user is that Elcomsoft can't grab keys from memory if RAM encryption of keys and passwords is turned on. So that m

I guess the interesting thing for a VeraCrypt user is that Elcomsoft can't grab keys from memory if RAM encryption of keys and passwords is turned on. So that means such a user is immune to Elcomsoft forensics software if they have a strong passphrase. I am not sure why Elcomsoft would want to write a blog article informing the world of this fact... Anyway, here is the direct link to how VeraCrypt does their RAM encryption: * https://sourceforge.net/p/veracrypt/discussion/technical/thread/3961542951/ https://sourceforge.net/p/veracrypt/discussion/technical/thr...

devit 5y ago
That doesn't prevent extraction by someone with supervisor/hypervisor access (so if Elcomsoft can't extract it it's only because they are lazy), it just tries to make it less likely that an attacker can extract it from a locked machine they have physical access to (by rebooting into a boot image of their choice and reading the RAM, the so-called "cold boot" attack). It's mathematically impossible to prevent key extraction unless you put the key in an HSM (the TPM might function as such, but it may not have good performance) and use that for decryption (the most you can do is make the key larger up to the amount of RAM you have, at the costing of wasting RAM). Even if you use an HSM, the malware can just extract the data itself or even on-the-fly decrypt the disk with the HSM and re-encrypt with a known key and then exfiltrate the known key, so all this does is make the attack slower since you need to read/write the whole disk.
lucb1e 5y ago
This is just a software limitation, you can't turn the option on and trust that they can't work around it next month. As the article says, RAM encryption is obfuscation more than really doing anything. It would be rather impressive if you could encrypt the key necessary to decrypt your RAM yet continue to use the computer. That isn't to say RAM encryption doesn't have other benefits, but if your computer is unlocked and unattended, then yeah someone is going to be able to dump those keys one way or another especially if the system isn't tamper-safe (like a smart card aims to be).

devit 5y ago

That doesn't prevent extraction by someone with supervisor/hypervisor access (so if Elcomsoft can't extract it it's only because they are lazy), it just tries to make it less likely that an attacker can extract it from a locked machine they have physical access to (by rebooting into a boot image of their choice and reading the RAM, the so-called "cold boot" attack). It's mathematically impossible to prevent key extraction unless you put the key in an HSM (the TPM might function as such, but it may not have good performance) and use that for decryption (the most you can do is make the key larger up to the amount of RAM you have, at the costing of wasting RAM). Even if you use an HSM, the malware can just extract the data itself or even on-the-fly decrypt the disk with the HSM and re-encrypt with a known key and then exfiltrate the known key, so all this does is make the attack slower since you need to read/write the whole disk.

lucb1e 5y ago

This is just a software limitation, you can't turn the option on and trust that they can't work around it next month. As the article says, RAM encryption is obfuscation more than really doing anything. It would be rather impressive if you could encrypt the key necessary to decrypt your RAM yet continue to use the computer. That isn't to say RAM encryption doesn't have other benefits, but if your computer is unlocked and unattended, then yeah someone is going to be able to dump those keys one way or another especially if the system isn't tamper-safe (like a smart card aims to be).