Disk encryption vulnerable to attack

A recently released demonstration from Princeton University shows that most disk encryption systems, including Microsoft Vista Bitlocker, Apple FileVault, Linux dm-crypt, and TrueCrypt, are vulnerable to a simple attack that will result in the attacker being able to read the entire contents of an encrypted hard drive.

Lessons learned:

• It is still highly important to prevent physical theft of a laptop computer
• It is preferable to shut down a system as opposed to leaving it in sleep mode

Articles:

Wired Magazine

News.com

Princeton University

Electronic Frontier Foundation

The Register

New York Times

AP

Network World

Use TrueCrypt to encrypt stored data on your laptop computer

Laptops are stolen. Data is compromised. Tens of thousands of individuals are notified of a breach of their private information.

We see this in the news every week.

There is a good product that you can use to safely and effectively encrypt your data; it’s called TrueCrypt.

I have used TrueCrypt for several months and have found it to be solid and reliable. Previously, I used PGP Desktop version 8.1, which is costly and was not reliable for me.

With TrueCrypt you can:

• Create and mount NTFS volumes as drive letters
• Encrypt an entire hard disk partition or portable (e.g. USB) drive
• Create hidden volumes that are impossible to prove that the volume even exists
• Encryption algorithms supported: AES-256, Serpent, and Twofish

TrueCrypt supports Microsoft Vista UAC (User Account Control) (requires version 4.3 released in March 2007).

TrueCrypt is very popular – to date it has been downloaded well over two million times.

(Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with TrueCrypt other than being a satisfied customer)

More information here: http://www.truecrypt.org/