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"Evil Maid" Attacks on Encrypted Hard Drives
- Torn 17y agoDiscussion of original article here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=884957 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=884957 Schneier's gloss doesn't add much.
- tptacek 17y ago... miss the point of full disk encryption, which is to avoid having to notify the news media when a drive that may or may not contain social security numbers is stolen out of the back of a car.
- amalcon 17y agoIf you really want to stop these sorts of attacks, the good old "boot disk" technique is the beginning and the end. Using a TPM for this is overkill, and arguably less secure. Many laptops now have SD card slots that could be used for inexpensive boot disks. A USB dongle would also work. Take the boot disk (that has the key on it) with you when you leave your computer. Encrypt everything else. Even that doesn't stop the $5 wrench attack (well, unless you anticipate it and flush the SD card down the toilet). The actual best thing you can do is just not keep sensitive data on your laptop.
- ggrot 17y agoMaybe I'm dense, but what is the $5 wrench attack? Attacking you personally with a wrench until you agree to show me the sensitive data on your machine?
- die_sekte 17y agoNo, actually attacking you personally with a wrench until you show me the password. See: http://xkcd.com/538/ http://xkcd.com/538/
- jeremyw 17y agoA side note: two-factor authentication (smartcards, etc) -- which minimizes Evil Maid exposure -- is unsupported on the OSX version of PGP Whole Disk Encryption. Let's pester their support staff to add it.