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Millions at stake in corporate espionage ...

"Obviously, that method is for people DESPARATE to steal someone's data and will not be attempted by the average crook."

There are people blithely walking around with Millions of dollars worth of data on it. Identity information is one type, company plans and financials are another. As long as banks and financial institutions use SSNs to determine identification, this type of data is a goldmine to identity thieves. The cost is negligible compared to the jackpot if they pull it off.

But the main users of this kind of attack will be cops and government agents. In the US, there isn't really a way to coerce a suspect into divulging a password (unless you count waterboarding) so the government is left with trying to break any encryption being used to conceal evidence. This is another tool in their kit, and they have funded IT forensics labs to do just these types of techniques. They have also developed many procedures to capture and preserve the state of a computer as it is seized, including portable power supplies to keep desktops and laptops running while they are being transported to the lab.

As you say, it would be a simple matter to modify the firmware to overwrite memory during shutdowns and startups, but there is no incentive for companies to do this. In fact, I think the government would take steps to do exactly the opposite, and force designers to build in more "back doors" that would allow them easy access to PC data. After all, that's what they did with telecom and network hardware and service providers.

Posted by: terry flores   Posted on: 02/21/08 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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