5 ms·

My laptop's BIOS settings are password protected. Good luck with booting from CD/USB/Network without hardware tampering.

idlewords 17y ago
As the article points out, this is easy to circumvent by removing the hard drive from your laptop. It adds a few minutes to the attack, and requires that the attacker bring a laptop, but you're still hosed.
- timf 17y ago
  Not my hard drive, the disk itself is fully encrypted and won't work in other laptops without that bios password (I also use a truecrypt-like thing at the filesystem level). The main attack I need to worry about is someone replacing the keyboard, etc.
  - Nekojoe 17y ago
    When you get to that level of protection, the main attack I'd be worried about is the $5 wrench. http://xkcd.com/538/ http://xkcd.com/538/ Of course as the strip also points out "Actual actual reality: nobody cares about his secrets"
    - timf 17y ago
      Very true, funny :-) At least with truecrypt you can give them only one of the passwords (it can do that secret "deniable" encrypted partition).
  - pmorici 17y ago
    What laptop / HD combination does that, or rather how can I tell if mine supports it?
    - hmmmm 17y ago
      Most corporate laptops support it, IBM/Leonova do. The problem is how do you know there isn't a master password (for AMI's bios it used to be "AMIBIOS") how do you know their encryption is any good (there was an enterprise tape vendor that advertised DES encryption but actually just XORed the data with your password) And finally how do you know they haven't done exactly the same trick but replaced your bios with one that includes a keylogger?
  - wizard_2 17y ago
    Are you using a hard drive password? Those are easily crackable as well as they usually have a vendor supplied master password. Do you mind giving more details?
    - timf 17y ago
      http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Full_Disk_Encryption_%28FDE%29 http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Full_Disk_Encryption_%28FDE%29
eli 17y ago
Unless you've got a very special sort of BIOS, those passwords aren't very strong. And I'd probably just use a keylogger.

idlewords 17y ago

As the article points out, this is easy to circumvent by removing the hard drive from your laptop. It adds a few minutes to the attack, and requires that the attacker bring a laptop, but you're still hosed.

timf 17y ago
Not my hard drive, the disk itself is fully encrypted and won't work in other laptops without that bios password (I also use a truecrypt-like thing at the filesystem level). The main attack I need to worry about is someone replacing the keyboard, etc.
- Nekojoe 17y ago
  When you get to that level of protection, the main attack I'd be worried about is the $5 wrench. http://xkcd.com/538/ http://xkcd.com/538/ Of course as the strip also points out "Actual actual reality: nobody cares about his secrets"
  - timf 17y ago
    Very true, funny :-) At least with truecrypt you can give them only one of the passwords (it can do that secret "deniable" encrypted partition).
- pmorici 17y ago
  What laptop / HD combination does that, or rather how can I tell if mine supports it?
  - hmmmm 17y ago
    Most corporate laptops support it, IBM/Leonova do. The problem is how do you know there isn't a master password (for AMI's bios it used to be "AMIBIOS") how do you know their encryption is any good (there was an enterprise tape vendor that advertised DES encryption but actually just XORed the data with your password) And finally how do you know they haven't done exactly the same trick but replaced your bios with one that includes a keylogger?
- wizard_2 17y ago
  Are you using a hard drive password? Those are easily crackable as well as they usually have a vendor supplied master password. Do you mind giving more details?
  - timf 17y ago
    http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Full_Disk_Encryption_%28FDE%29 http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Full_Disk_Encryption_%28FDE%29

eli 17y ago

Unless you've got a very special sort of BIOS, those passwords aren't very strong. And I'd probably just use a keylogger.