How the hell can you stop this from happening?
i was just wondering, if anyone knows anyway to prevent this from happening? (other than don't use windows lol)
http://download.airodump.net/data/video/vistahack.swf
you could say lock bios, prevent booting from a cd/usb, but cracking the bios or simply resetting it is cake.
Is there anything a someone could do at the user level to fix this or is this purely on MS to fix this flaw?
would encrypting the drive do any good? if so how good is such encryption?
this leaves a HUGE backdoor in the os after you've made this quick change.
any thoughts?
(i wasn't sure where to put this one, mods please move if incorrectly placed)
Why?
Why are you writing this?
What do you expect?
Of course, it is quite normal for an operating system to be able to read the contents of the disks. When using backtrack as a LiveCD/DVD for example it is normal.
You asked about strategies.
I suggest that one does not allow physical access to the machine. Encryption is useful but all encrypted material needs to be decoded at some stage upon entering userland for normal processing.
So, what did you expect?
Lux sit
A bios password will do no good since in order for the "hack" to work one would need physical access to the machine. As such removing the cmos battery is pretty trivial in such a case.Originally Posted by cynicalpsycho
Encryption would help prevent the contents of the drive from being easily accessed, however again if the someone has physical access and the owner of the laptop/pc kept a copy of the password somewhere on the drive then again it's game over.
I think blackfoot summed it up pretty good, what did you expect to happen.
This is just one of a myriad of ways of compromise.
To be successful here you should read all of the following.
ForumRules
ForumFAQ
If you are new to Back|Track
Back|Track Wiki
Failure to do so will probably get your threads deleted or worse.
Just use a good encryption scheme for your harddisk and memorize the hardest password ever you made xD
I'm sure that will do. Of course you can set BIOS passwords and also set up other things
at the OS-level f.ex. if you run Linux, you use sudo and don't log in as root. That's just a
lame example but it helps increase the security a tiny bit. xD
[quote][I]I realized, that I had fallen down from the top of the mountain into a deep, terrifying and dark hole, just to find out that another mountain in front of me, much greater than the previous, was the next step in life. I began to wander uphill on the next mountain of life while I knew it would be much harder than the previous mountain. [/I]- MaXe[/quote]
Most newer laptops have a hard drive password option. This password is part of the ata spec, so it's not tied to the laptop or bios. Nothing gets access to the drive without the password. Though you might be able to swap the controller card, I've not tried that for password bypass.
Of course, if you really wanted to have some fun, go to Wal-Mart late at night and ask the greeter if they could help you find trashbags, roll of carpet, rope, quicklime, clorox and a shovel. See if they give you any strange looks. --Streaker69
Use trucrypt if you think one of the people you let inside your house will try this.
Using backtrack for the first time is like being 10 years old again with the keys to a Ferrari.
Keep the PC locked.....
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough -- Albert Einstein
If it's an unencrypted Windows PC that is just outdated half a year, keeping it locked wont do any good at all! xD It's actually quite funny that with all the system access i got on windows computers was when they were locked! (i used the vnc inject afterwards as proof of concept for the bosses).
So keeping it locked, seriously no it doesn't do anything good. It's a joke. You can even get a cmd shell with the screen being locked if you hack it with Metasploit or similar.
[quote][I]I realized, that I had fallen down from the top of the mountain into a deep, terrifying and dark hole, just to find out that another mountain in front of me, much greater than the previous, was the next step in life. I began to wander uphill on the next mountain of life while I knew it would be much harder than the previous mountain. [/I]- MaXe[/quote]
If you're seriously concerned about compromise by people with physical access there is really only one solution. You need full disk encryption(read truecrypt) and when your not around the machine needs to be powered off. No locking the session, no sleeping, no hibernating... off. First link I came across on google for 'freeze ram' Cryogenically frozen RAM bypasses all disk encryption methods | Zero Day | ZDNet.com (zdnet gross but gets the gist of it) And while I would expect this would suffice as they say physical access = owned so I wouldn't bet your life on it... maybe someone elses lol.
~Monovitae~
In regard to ATA security there was an article printed in 2600 Volume Twenty-six number one titled 'ATA Security Exposed' in which a number of vulnerabilities are discussed. I imagine this info can be found elsewhere as well. While a nice feature I insist on FDE for any laptops I manage if they have sensitive info on them, which incidentally is all laptops.
~Monovitae~
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