Why You Should Never Hibernate Your Computer

[Infiltrator]

Hi All,

Found this article really interesting and from a forensic investigator point of view, if you hibernate your computer and its not encrypted its game over for you, that is if you committed a crime.

http://www.anti-forensics.com/the-risks-of...nd-web-browsing

[Infiltrator]

Its a good thing I never hibernate my computer, I still place my computer on stand-by. But after reading this article I realized the important of encrypting my hard drive. Not that I have committed any crimes, to hide my evidences but its common security practice for anyone that has confidential information, saved on their computers.

Image your computer falling on the hands of a wrong person, who has malicious intend to destroy your life. I would definitely recommend this article to anyone who is interested in security or planning on hiding evidences from a forensics investigator.

[Guest Deleted_Account]

I am just glad TrueCrypt supports hibernation and encrypts the file. But I am now on Ubuntu 10.10 now and using LUKS LVM, not sure if it encrypts hibernation file or not but hibernation won't work for me anyways :P I just tell it to remember what was running and relaunch it :)

Although how would it miss such a file? I mean if you are using TC or PGP (and others) they encrypt the entire file system on a bit-per-bit basis so how could it leave the hibernation file unencrypted?

[Infiltrator]

The only portion of the hard drive that does not get encrypted in the MBR, or the master boot record. The rest of the hard drive gets encrypted, so technically the hibernation file also gets encrypted.

There are still ways to obtain the TrueCrypt encryption keys. But that involves physical access to the computer.

[Guest Deleted_Account]

True but all three of those methods can be stopped with ease. They are nothing more than a proof of concept that in the real world would have a less than .01% chance of working. Bios and HDD locks will slow the attacker down. A hash of the MBR will alert you if evil maid or stoned are used and shutting down/ cutting power negates coldboot in about. 30seconds. If I was worried I would boot my SD card which has UBCD on it and run the men test and then wipe the MBR + drive header. No boot, header or ram. Problem solved :) only takes 10 minutes to do too. As the rest is encrypted no need to wipe it the important data is gone.

[Infiltrator]

True but all three of those methods can be stopped with ease. They are nothing more than a proof of concept that in the real world would have a less than .01% chance of working. Bios and HDD locks will slow the attacker down. A hash of the MBR will alert you if evil maid or stoned are used and shutting down/ cutting power negates coldboot in about. 30seconds. If I was worried I would boot my SD card which has UBCD on it and run the men test and then wipe the MBR + drive header. No boot, header or ram. Problem solved :) only takes 10 minutes to do too. As the rest is encrypted no need to wipe it the important data is gone.

Yep, perfect solution to get rid of any MBR infection and to restore the MBR to a clean state. If you are using Windows, just run the repair utility off the installation CD and bingo you are back in business.