Hacking News (33 Posts)

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Full Disk Encryption Attacks

#23 - Posted on 25 January 2011 - Author: SM - Category: Security, Hacking

Although 3 years old, this is a good article and a link to a paper about coldboot attack against full disk encryption technology.

In a nutshell, it is related to data not being encrypted when stored in RAM and although it is volatile: “from 2.5 to 35 seconds to reach a Null State” when switched off, it can be recovered with a few techniques such as dropping the RAM temperature to slow down that “null state” or booting up the device through a very small kernel OS so only a small portion of the RAM is over written through a USB device for example.

What makes this attack even more powerful is that a lot of information “derived from the encryption keys” are stored in RAM, usually to speedup calculations.
The author then warn those attacks would be very difficult to prevent without a radical change in hardware architecture or “overhaul of the encryption process itself”.

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Cellular Network Attacks

#22 - Posted on 17 January 2011 - Author: SM - Category: Security, Hacking

A few websites have been running a story today on an upcoming attack announcement/demo in next week black hat conference.

Instead of targeting the OS or a specific app, that attack would target bugs directly in a component used to send and receive calls, a baseband chip. Although technically it is still a software attack, the code used to control that chip, it would bypass any security measures in place at the OS level, and would especially be out of Apple/Google control. Such attack could be used to intercept calls or spy on a phone user by activating its phone microphone…

But then surely you would also need to find a bug in the microphone chip? Or elevate your privilege at the OS level from the baseband chip bug?
Anyway, eavesdropping on calls would at least be possible.

What makes this news interesting is both that duplicating a cell tower is becoming easier/cheaper (about $2k) and that you can’t secure and control everything, even in close sy...
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PS3 Hacked and Cryptography

#19 - Posted on 7 January 2011 - Author: SM - Category: Security, Hacking, Cryptography

The recent hack on PS3 where the private key used by Sony to sign their games has been recovered is of course a very bad news for Sony. It finishes to open the door to piracy which started in January 2010. In theory, anyone could now sign (pirated) software to run natively on the PS3.

It is a case of badly implemented cryptography algorithm, in that case, the use a proprietary signing algorithm with a faulty random generator.
Crypto 101 says to NEVER use proprietary/secret algorithms. Now Sony’s will pay the price for not listening :)
The PS3 hack story is a great example of badly implemented cryptography which is as important as the choice of the security controls used to protect an asset.

BBC NEWS ARTICLE

The start of an answer from Sony, which seems to indicate they did not grasp the severity of the issue when first announced about a week ago
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