Blog: Data Can Leak from Partially Encrypted Disks

Data Can Leak from Partially Encrypted Disks
IDG News Service (07/16/08) McMillan, Robert

Encrypted data can spill over into unencrypted parts of a computer, exposing it to hackers and viruses, according to researchers from the University of Washington and British Telecommunication. Essentially, a computer is not fully protected unless it is 100 percent encrypted, says study co-author Tadayoshi Kohno. "I suspect that this is a potentially huge issue. We've basically cracked the surface," says Kohno, an assistant professor at the University of Washington's Seattle campus. When a user opens an encrypted file with Word, Google Desktop, or even an encrypted USB drive, the information can still be stored in unencrypted areas of the hard drive. During their experiments, researchers viewed encrypted Word documents by opening the auto-recovery folder and read encrypted files over Google Desktop when the Enhanced Search option was on. Even encryption software platforms like TrueCrypt 5.1a contain the same vulnerabilities, researchers found, and the software version 6.0 addresses some problems but still does not fully protect encrypted data on an unencrypted computer.
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