Popular Disk Encryption Methods Vulnerable to Physical Access Attack
Security researchers at Princeton have demonstrated they can retrieve the contents of encrypted disks by capturing the encryption key from memory. The technique works if a computer is on or in sleep mode, or in some cases powered off. A video demonstrating the process of key discovery, which only takes a few minutes, is available at the researcher's web site. The problem stems from incorrect assumptions about the physical properties of memory.
As on researchers pointed out to the New York Times:
“The software world tends not to think about these issues,” said Matt Blaze, an associate professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania. “We tend to make assumptions about the hardware. When we find out that those assumptions are wrong, we’re in trouble.”
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