could it not be a backdoor in the guise of a bug? Sarad. --- On Thu, 1/7/10, Peter Gutmann <pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
From: Peter Gutmann <pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz> Subject: [Fwd] NIST-certified USB Flash drives with hardware encryption cracked To: cypherpunks@al-qaeda.net Date: Thursday, January 7, 2010, 9:42 AM http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/NIST-certified-USB-Flash-drives-w...
Encrypting USB Flash memory from Kingston, SanDisk and Verbatim Vergrv_ern Kingston, SanDisk and Verbatim all sell quite similar USB Flash drives with AES 256-bit hardware encryption that supposedly meet the highest security standards. This is emphasised by the FIPS 140-2 Level 2 certificate issued by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which validates the USB drives for use with sensitive government data. Security firm SySS, however, has found that despite this it is relatively easy to access the unencrypted data, even without the required password.
[...]
The real question, however, remains unanswered . how could USB Flash drives that exhibit such a serious security hole be given one of the highest certificates for crypto devices? Even more importantly, perhaps . what is the value of a certification that fails to detect such holes?
#include <standard debate about the value, or lack thereof, of FIPS 140 certification>
Peter.