Thanks for the info, Lark. So the attack vector is reduced to: 1. the machine is on* (like if the user locks his screen & walks away for a moment), and then 2. someone steals the laptop (leaving it on), and then 3. restarts the machine using a boot disc or bootable USB stick.
Begging the question: Are there ways of mitigating that avenue of attack beyond just changing the boot sequence in the BIOS & password-protecting the BIOS setup? * I understand many other vulnerabilities exist on running operating systems, such as buffer overflow attacks on system services via the network, but I find that avenue of attack less likely than simply using a boot disc (as described above), esp as self-encrypting drives become more widespread. ----- Original Message ----- From: Lark Allen To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 11:42 AM Subject: Re: [FDE] Q concerning hardware-based encryption/security Garrett, The alternate boot threat you describe cannot be executed against the Seagate Momentus FDE drives. Whenever power is removed from the drive, either at full system shutdown, or when the system goes into hibernation, the drive locks and all user data, including the hibernation file is encrypted and unavailable. When the system is powered up the FDE drive is locked. If an alternate system is booted, the drive will only appear to have a 128MB available, which is the protected read-only partition on the drive which stores the shadow master boot record which is used to provide the pre-boot authentication for unlocking the drive by an authorized user. Once the drive is unlocked, then the normal boot process or return from hibernation will execute. There is no possibility for alternate boot scenarios which will be able to find the drive in an unlocked state. The Wave Embassy software you mentioned for managing the setup and security settings for the Seagate FDE drive, forces Windows to use hibernate mode, even if standby mode is selected by the user. In Dell systems, Seagate, Wave, and Dell worked together to create a solution for secure standby mode, so for Dell systems both hibernate and standby modes are supported with full security. Lark Allen Wave Systems Corp. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Garrett M. Groff Sent: Monday, July 06, 2009 11:23 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [FDE] Q concerning hardware-based encryption/security I have a concern about self-encrypting drives, specifically Seagate Momentus FDE. While the idea looks quite brilliant, my understanding is that the user is only prompted for credentials when booting from a cold machine (one that has been shut down completely). If that's correct, then that presents the following vector of attack: Bad Guy catches machine in standby (or hibernate?) mode. Bad Guy wakes machine & then restarts it, booting to a USB stick (or CD) rather than the HDD. Since HDD is already authenticated, Bad Guy mounts file system & reads (or writes!) data directly off of HDD. Can someone provide technical information that confirms or denies this potential attack vector? I'm specifically looking at Seagate's Momentus FDE drive w/ Wave's Embassy Suite, though other vendors would logically suffer the same vulnerability. Thanks. _______________________________________________ FDE mailing list [email protected] http://www.xml-dev.com/mailman/listinfo/fde _______________________________________________ FDE mailing list [email protected] http://www.xml-dev.com/mailman/listinfo/fde ----- Original Message ----- From: Lark Allen To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 11:42 AM Subject: Re: [FDE] Q concerning hardware-based encryption/security Garrett, The alternate boot threat you describe cannot be executed against the Seagate Momentus FDE drives. Whenever power is removed from the drive, either at full system shutdown, or when the system goes into hibernation, the drive locks and all user data, including the hibernation file is encrypted and unavailable. When the system is powered up the FDE drive is locked. If an alternate system is booted, the drive will only appear to have a 128MB available, which is the protected read-only partition on the drive which stores the shadow master boot record which is used to provide the pre-boot authentication for unlocking the drive by an authorized user. Once the drive is unlocked, then the normal boot process or return from hibernation will execute. There is no possibility for alternate boot scenarios which will be able to find the drive in an unlocked state. The Wave Embassy software you mentioned for managing the setup and security settings for the Seagate FDE drive, forces Windows to use hibernate mode, even if standby mode is selected by the user. In Dell systems, Seagate, Wave, and Dell worked together to create a solution for secure standby mode, so for Dell systems both hibernate and standby modes are supported with full security. Lark Allen Wave Systems Corp. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Garrett M. Groff Sent: Monday, July 06, 2009 11:23 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [FDE] Q concerning hardware-based encryption/security I have a concern about self-encrypting drives, specifically Seagate Momentus FDE. While the idea looks quite brilliant, my understanding is that the user is only prompted for credentials when booting from a cold machine (one that has been shut down completely). If that's correct, then that presents the following vector of attack: Bad Guy catches machine in standby (or hibernate?) mode. Bad Guy wakes machine & then restarts it, booting to a USB stick (or CD) rather than the HDD. Since HDD is already authenticated, Bad Guy mounts file system & reads (or writes!) data directly off of HDD. Can someone provide technical information that confirms or denies this potential attack vector? I'm specifically looking at Seagate's Momentus FDE drive w/ Wave's Embassy Suite, though other vendors would logically suffer the same vulnerability. Thanks. _______________________________________________ FDE mailing list [email protected] http://www.xml-dev.com/mailman/listinfo/fde -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- Original Message ----- From: Lark Allen To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 11:42 AM Subject: Re: [FDE] Q concerning hardware-based encryption/security Garrett, The alternate boot threat you describe cannot be executed against the Seagate Momentus FDE drives. Whenever power is removed from the drive, either at full system shutdown, or when the system goes into hibernation, the drive locks and all user data, including the hibernation file is encrypted and unavailable. When the system is powered up the FDE drive is locked. If an alternate system is booted, the drive will only appear to have a 128MB available, which is the protected read-only partition on the drive which stores the shadow master boot record which is used to provide the pre-boot authentication for unlocking the drive by an authorized user. Once the drive is unlocked, then the normal boot process or return from hibernation will execute. There is no possibility for alternate boot scenarios which will be able to find the drive in an unlocked state. The Wave Embassy software you mentioned for managing the setup and security settings for the Seagate FDE drive, forces Windows to use hibernate mode, even if standby mode is selected by the user. In Dell systems, Seagate, Wave, and Dell worked together to create a solution for secure standby mode, so for Dell systems both hibernate and standby modes are supported with full security. Lark Allen Wave Systems Corp. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Garrett M. Groff Sent: Monday, July 06, 2009 11:23 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [FDE] Q concerning hardware-based encryption/security I have a concern about self-encrypting drives, specifically Seagate Momentus FDE. While the idea looks quite brilliant, my understanding is that the user is only prompted for credentials when booting from a cold machine (one that has been shut down completely). If that's correct, then that presents the following vector of attack: Bad Guy catches machine in standby (or hibernate?) mode. Bad Guy wakes machine & then restarts it, booting to a USB stick (or CD) rather than the HDD. Since HDD is already authenticated, Bad Guy mounts file system & reads (or writes!) data directly off of HDD. Can someone provide technical information that confirms or denies this potential attack vector? I'm specifically looking at Seagate's Momentus FDE drive w/ Wave's Embassy Suite, though other vendors would logically suffer the same vulnerability. Thanks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ FDE mailing list [email protected] http://www.xml-dev.com/mailman/listinfo/fde
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