[Info-vax] OT: Interesting Method of Attack

[RobertsonEricW]

The following link gets you to a synopsis of a paper (and contains a link to the full paper if you are in the mood for some reading) describing an interesting method of cracking modern encryption keys used for secure data transmission. The paper is not specific to OpenVMS. My only reason for mentioning it in this forum is to remind everyone that even secure operating systems can potentially be attacked indirectly in ways that do not explicitly make use of any specific human or operating system software weaknesses. This paper also serves to remind everyone that in addition to all of the other IT Security headaches we have to deal with, we should be ever mindful of the fundamental importance of physical security of your IT environment. The reason I say this with respect to this paper is because, unless you know what is being physically transported into and out of your IT environment (both inside and outside of equipment cases), you might never even know that this method of attack is even occurring until it is too late!

Enjoy!

http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~tromer/acoustic/