[hardened] Gentoo, security, RAM-contents, wiping, paranoia

kernelOfTruth

Hi,

wouldn't it be nice to have the option in hardened gentoo to wipe RAM-content during shutdown (if it only takes seconds, according to the "Tails" security distribution - why not ?) ?

https://tails.boum.org/contribute/design/memory_erasure/

Discuss

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Hardcore Gentoo Linux user since 2004

Yamakuzure · Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2014 10:57 am Post subject:

And wiping RAM before the power gets OFF helps against what exactly? (Just wondering what anybody could read from the chips when they have lost all electricity...)
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kernelOfTruth · Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2014 11:57 am Post subject:

afaik the most important thing: encryption keys

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_boot_attack

http://superuser.com/questions/464297/wipe-ram-on-shut-down-to-prevent-cold-boot-attack

hm, only older RAM (DDR, DDR2) seem to be affected - newer systems not ? [mentioned in the 2nd link]) - interesting ...

seems like

Autostart after Power loss
RAM check at boot time

enabling in BIOS mitigates the problem
_________________
https://github.com/kernelOfTruth/ZFS-for-SystemRescueCD/tree/ZFS-for-SysRescCD-4.9.0
https://github.com/kernelOfTruth/pulseaudio-equalizer-ladspa

Hardcore Gentoo Linux user since 2004