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this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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Technology
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So you know those encrypted files you might have? You know how your computer is able to display them? Yeah, you enter the passcode and then it and any information derived from it is (probably, barring special hardware) stored in RAM to in order do that. This isn't usually an issue because turning your computer off will quickly erase the RAM and it can no longer be used to open that file.
I mean... this already happens now if you leave the PC open or in sleep, for example with bitlocker.
And I guess in this case it could allow when shutdown if the memory has not been cleared.... But most of the time that is not a problem, most people aren't attacked by pulling the info directly from the hardware.
And in case that is a possible attack, I expect a mechanism of the app(s) to clear that region on shutdown or whatever is done or even better maybe the OS would do it as part of the existing memory protection mechanisms. I mean most apps already clear the memory as soon as possible if it is not needed to avoid having secrets or unencrypted information on memory.
I didn't actually look more closely at how this works, but some kinds of memory are hard to safely erase. If I had to use this, I'd make sure there was a secure wipe of the whole thing minus whatever the system itself is using at shutdown.
It wouldn't completely break security, if that even makes sense as a concept, but it wouldn't help. Hardware security is the strongest kind.
Or you could encrypt the snapshot before it goes to sleep.
Again, you just have to be careful you've cleared all the other stuff on the RAM.
This is already a thing we need to deal with, security wise. An application making use of encryption doesn't know the condition of what it views as ram, and it could very well be transferred to a durable medium due to memory pressure. Same thing with hibernation as opposed to suspension.
Depending on your application and how sensitive it is, there are different steps you can take to deal with stuff like that.