RE: Firewire Attack on Windows Vista

As somewhat indicated in the paper itself, these types of physical DMA attacks are possible against any PC-based OS, not just Windows. If that's true, why is the paper titled around Windows Vista?

I guess it makes headlines faster. But isn't as important, if not more important, to say all PC-based systems have the same underlying problem? That it's a broader problem needing a broader solution, instead of picking on one OS vendor to get headlines?

[Disclaimer: I'm a full-time Microsoft employee.]

Roger

*****************************************************************
*Roger A. Grimes, InfoWorld, Security Columnist
*CPA, CISSP, CISA, MCSE: Security (2000/2003), CEH, yada...yada...
*email: roger_grimes_at_infoworld.com or roger_at_banneretcs.com
*Author of Windows Vista Security: Securing Vista Against Malicious Attacks (Wiley)
*http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Vista-Security-Securing-Malicious/dp/0470101555
*****************************************************************

-----Original Message-----
From: Bernhard Mueller [mailto:research_at_sec-consult.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 10:54 AM
To: Full Disclosure; Bugtraq
Subject: Firewire Attack on Windows Vista

Hello,

In the light of recent discussions about firewire / DMA hacks, we would like to throw in some of the results of our past research on this topic (done mainly by Peter Panholzer) in the form of a short whitepaper. In this paper, we demonstrate that the firewire unlock attack (as implemented in Adam Boileau´s winlockpwn) can be used against Windows Vista.

The paper is available at:

http://www.sec-consult.com/fileadmin/Whitepapers/Vista_Physical_Attacks.pdf

Best regards,

Bernhard

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