Re: Laptop encryption

[Sarah Stevens <sarah () STEVENS-TECHNOLOGIES COM>]

This could possibly take this conversation in a completely different direction, but have you seen the article on 
slashdot about whole disk encryption?
 
Here is a segment of the article, reproduced from Slashdot (in case you do not feel comfortable following the link):
 
"PGP Corporation's widely adopted Whole Disk Encryption product 
<http://www.pgp.com/products/wholediskencryption/index.html>  apparently has an encryption bypass feature 
<http://securology.blogspot.com/2007/10/pgp-whole-disk-encryption-barely.html>  that allows an encrypted drive to be 
accessed without the boot-up passphrase challenge dialog, leaving data in a vulnerable state if the drive is stolen 
when the bypass feature is enabled. The feature is also apparently not in the documentation that ships with the PGP 
product, nor the publicly available documentation on their website, but only mentioned briefly in the customer 
knowledge base. Jon Callas, CTO and CSO of PGP Corp., responded 
<http://securology.blogspot.com/2007/10/pgp-whole-disk-encryption-barely.html#comment-7822943064091432904>  that this 
feature was required by unnamed customers and that competing products have similar functionality."
 
Here is the link to the article:
 
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/04/1639224
 
Sarah Stevens
Stevens Technologies, Inc
Charlotte, NC 28227

________________________________

From: David Taylor [mailto:ltr () ISC UPENN EDU]
Sent: Fri 10/5/2007 10:12 AM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Laptop encryption


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That was very helpful information. Much appreciated.  We have just formed a team to look at whole disk encryption for 
laptops with sensitive data on them and had this on the list to look at.
 
 
- -------------------------------
David Taylor
University of Pennsylvania
Office of Information Security
215-898-1236
- -------------------------------
 
 
 
_____________________________________________
From: David Seidl [mailto:dseidl () ND EDU] 
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2007 10:55 AM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Laptop encryption
 
 
* PGP Signed by an unverified key: 10/05/07 at 10:54:38
 
Seagate did a lunch and learn on these at the SANS Network Security 
conference - I'd like to get a chance to look at one myself. Here's what 
I have in my notes from their presentation:
 
There are a few caveats right now:
 
1) The drives are 5400 RPM older generation drives only - they noted 
that they were adding encryption to existing platforms rather than 
cutting edge devices - thus the lower rotational speed and the 1.5 Gbps 
SATA rather than 3.0 Gbps SATA interface.
2) They are not FIPS certified (as a device)
3) Only 2.5" drives are currently available, so this isn't a viable 
desktop solution yet.
 
There are currently two third parties who provide management interfaces 
for the drive encryption. If you scale to any great degree, you'll want 
to purchase the management software in addition to the drives. Seagate 
claimed that the cost with management software was still lower than full 
drive encryption and management software that is currently available.
 
One of my concerns - albeit a relatively minor one at the moment - was 
that the firmware that boots them is (from their description) basically 
a Linux mini-kernel which accepts user input in the form of a passphrase 
to unlock the drive. The Seagate staffers at the conference said that 
there was currently no patching method if vulnerabilities were found in 
the mini-kernel. I'd hate to have vulnerable or exploitable disk drives 
on top of everything else.
 
David
 
- ------------------------------------------------------------
David Seidl, CISSP
University of Notre Dame, Office of Information Technologies
 
David Taylor wrote:
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>
> There is also the Seagate drive that does whole disk encryption.  It also takes most of the performance hit since 
> most of the processing is done on the drive hardware. Has anyone had any experience with these?  I think they just 
> hit the market recently.
>
> http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/129734/seagate_ships_supersecure_hard_disk_drive.html
>
>
> - -------------------------------
> David Taylor
> University of Pennsylvania
> Office of Information Security
> 215-898-1236
> - -------------------------------
 
* David Seidl <dseidl () nd edu>
* Issuer: Thawte Consulting (Pty) Ltd. - Unverified
 
 
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