bugtraq - Window Washer 5.5: False Sense of Security

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Message-ID: <20040823195354.31083.qmail@www.securityfocus.com>
Date: 23 Aug 2004 19:53:54 -0000
From: First Last <wbglinks@...links.net>
To: bugtraq@...urityfocus.com
Subject: Window Washer 5.5: False Sense of Security

Letter sent to Webroot a few weeks back, no response as of yet:

Hi,

I'm currently writing a tech paper on the recovery of information from
used hard drives.

And after doing some experimenting with different types of security/privacy software I found that your product, Window Washer 5.5, is providing its customers with a false sense of security.

The problem I found with your software was with one of the features of
Window Washer 5.5, under the Options/Security settings. The 'Add
Bleach to Wash' does not work.

After experimenting with this feature and using common, freeware
recovery programs I was able to easily recover %100 of the information
that was suppose to be "bleach"ed by your product. Didn't matter
the pass setting, I was still able to easily recover the targeted bleached
data. Though a user defined setting seemed to work a little better, just
the FAT entries were scrambled and not the actual data information!
I could easily give new names to the scrambled FAT entries, and recover
the "bleached" data, even after a user defined bleach setting of 50 (also the right-click Shred (Wash and Bleach) feature fails in the same manner).

I thought I would write Webroot and see what you guys had to say before
publishing my findings.

In your help file for Window Washer, you guys state:

"You can make your wash more secure by adding "bleach." The bleach
overwrites each file that Window Washer deletes with random characters.
You cannot recover bleached files using an undelete or unerase program."

This is simply untrue and I hope perhaps an explanation from your company
could show my findings in a different light. I would be more than happy
to send you my method of testing your product, including the name of
the recovery tool(s) that were used.

Thank you for your time,

WBG Links
www.wbglinks.net