Disc encryption is used by both governments and the business world to secure sensitive information against exploitation. Fundamentally it relies upon the safe keeping of the encryption key to keep this information secure. The matter has come to head after a number of high profile incidents involving governmental department information entering the public domain by way of poor encryption protocol. The worry is, even if systems are working correctly and keys are wiped a few minutes after switch off, what happens if a laptop is found in standby mode; surely it would then be easy to hack and gain access to the sensitive information.
The use of sleep mode is not advisable for any PC with sensitive information stored on it, powering down after and between uses is vital. Another worry however is access from outside the operating software directly to the memory. Advanced hackers have the knowledge to do this and also know by rapidly turning a laptop on and then off it are possible to gain direct access to the memory, especially when this is combined with cooling the laptop down. It is believed that memory retention can be increased by up to 10 minutes if a laptop is cooled sufficiently.
The research has raised doubts over the worth of encryption in laptops, if it is really that easy for hackers to gain access to sensitive information, what is the point of encryption? Undoubtedly the encryption industry will adapt to these challenges, developing new software in the ever evolving arms race with hackers. For the sake of governments and big business, the work of the encryption industry had better produce software that will adequately protect their information.
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