Laptop Encryption Useless In Cases of Theft: Easy Hack To Circumvent Encryption
Researchers with Princeton University and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have found a flaw that renders disk encryption systems useless if an intruder has physical access to your computer — say in the case of a stolen laptop or when a computer is left unattended on a desktop in sleep mode or while displaying a password prompt screen.
The attack takes only a few minutes to conduct and uses the disk encryption key that’s stored in the computer’s RAM.
Encrypted drives are no longer enough to protect data in cases of theft. What to do? GadgetTrak actually launched new laptop theft recovery software this week. The software is unique in that it utilizes privacy-safe tracking technology so that there is no monitoring center that can trace your movements or rely on backdoors into your system. Recovery of the laptop in cases where a laptop was stolen for its data I think is crucial. Not only do you get the laptop and data back, but you are also able to identify who stole the laptop and what they did with the data.
If a laptop was stolen by a mole for example, identifying who stole the laptop and what they did with the data such as providing it to competitors, selling personal data etc can be more important as it can help plug a security hole and reduce the risk of future data thefts.
Although this hack requires a bit of technical knowledge, identifying who stole the laptop can help to discover if the data has been breached or not, as well as plug a security hole of the human kind.