*** This bug is a security vulnerability ***
Public security bug reported:
I have installed Xubuntu 11.10 from the "alternate" installer disc and
set up whole-disk encryption through the official installer. I am almost
100% certain that when I suspend my machine, my disk's encryption key is
left in RAM, and when I hibernate, my key is saved to disk (very bad!).
My evidence for this is pretty simple: Upon resuming the machine, no
password needs to be entered in order to unlock the disk (only the
xscreensaver password, which can be entirely different). This is a major
security vulnerability because it means that someone who steals a
suspended or hibernated laptop could decrypt its disk using the
(unencrypted, readily available) key in RAM or on disk. Worse, I suspect
the key would remain on disk even after a shutdown (following a
hibernate) unless some secure erase method is used. Since laptops are
both the types of machines that people typically encrypt and the types
of machines that people typically suspend/hibernate, this seems like a
huge security issue to me.
** Affects: ubuntu
Importance: Undecided
Status: New
** Visibility changed to: Public
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/937361
Title:
LUKS encryption keys are not dumped on suspend/hibernate
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