Macbook Air Has Some Key, Unexpected Security Features

One of the most hatedthings on Apple’s new MacBook Air laptops?the fact that it’s impossibleto upgrade the laptop’s RAM?could accidentally turn out to be quite auseful security feature.

In fact, according to Ivan Krstic, director of security architectureat OLPC (One Laptop per Child), the sleek new MacBook Air is onefirmware upgrade away from being the only mainstream laptop that isresistant to the cold-boot encryption attack discussed recently by researchers at Princeton University and the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation).

The research report,released Feb. 21, calls attention to a design limitation in severalwidely used disk encryption technologies that could allow practicalattacks against laptops in "sleep" or "hibernation" mode. It affectsMicrosoft’s BitLocker (Windows Vista), Apple’s FileVault (Mac OS X) andTrueCrypt and dm-crypt (Linux).

The research team found that in most computers, RAM contents willpersist from several seconds to a minute even at room temperature andthat cheap refrigerants like canned air spray dusters can be used toproduce temperatures cold enough to make RAM contents last for a longtime even when the memory chips are physically removed from thecomputer.

Read the full article at eWEEK.