bugtraq - RE: Dell BIOS DoS

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Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 12:25:48 +1100
From: "Lyal Collins" <lyalc@...mail.com.au>
To: "'Craig Paterson'" <craigp@...pett.com>
Cc: <bugtraq@...urityfocus.com>
Subject: RE: Dell BIOS DoS

Not sure that the sentiments below are 100% correct - see Ross Andersons
papers on logical and API attacks upon tamper resistant hardware,
faciltated by physical (or near physical) access to the hardware.

If you can do it in software, you can break it in software.

Lyal

-----Original Message-----
From: Craig Paterson [mailto:craigp@...pett.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, 10 December 2003 7:03 AM
To: David Brodbeck
Cc: 'jon schatz'; bugtraq@...urityfocus.com
Subject: Re: Dell BIOS DoS

David Brodbeck wrote:

>There is no such thing as security from someone who has physical access
to
>the hardware.
>

Alright, so this is a tangent, but: that is what encryption is for. The 
whole basis of encryption assumes that the attacker has access to the 
message (your data), but that without the appropriate keys you can't 
usefully access it. No, this doesn't have much to do with the value or 
otherwise of BIOS passwords, but it's often stated that physical access 
renders all your data wide open, which isn't necessarily the case.

Craig.