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Encrypted Watermarks and Linux Laptop Security

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Information Security Applications (WISA 2004)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 3325))

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Abstract

The most common way to implement full-disk encryption (as opposed to encrypted file systems) in the GNU/Linux operating system is using the encrypted loop device, known as CryptoLoop. We demonstrate clear weaknesses in the current CBC-based implementation of CryptoLoop, perhaps the most surprising being a very simple attack which allows specially watermarked files to be identified on an encrypted hard disk without knowledge of the secret encryption key.

We take a look into the practical problems of securely booting, authenticating, and keying full-disk encryption. We propose simple improvements to the current CryptoLoop implementation based on the notions of tweakable encryption algorithms and enciphering modes. We also discuss sector-level authentication codes.

The new methods have been implemented as a set of patches to the Linux Kernel series 2.6 and the relevant system tools.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Theoretical Computer Science, Helsinki University of Technology, P.O. Box 5400, FIN-02015 HUT, Finland

    Markku-Juhani O. Saarinen

Authors
  1. Markku-Juhani O. Saarinen
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Computer Engineering, Sejong University, 143-747, Seoul, Korea

    Chae Hoon Lim

  2. Computer Science Department, Google Inc. and Columbia University, 1214 Amsterdam Avenue, 10027, New York, NY, USA

    Moti Yung

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© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Saarinen, MJ.O. (2005). Encrypted Watermarks and Linux Laptop Security. In: Lim, C.H., Yung, M. (eds) Information Security Applications. WISA 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3325. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-31815-6_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-31815-6_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-24015-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-31815-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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