Welcome Guest. | Log In | Register | Membership Benefits

Vulnerabilities Reported In Mac Encryption Products

Passware Kit Forensic v11.3 recovers Mac OS user login passwords

Feb 01, 2012 | 04:58 PM | 


Mountain View, Calif. (February 1, 2012) – Passware, Inc., a provider of password recovery, decryption, and electronic evidence discovery software for computer forensics, law enforcement organizations, government agencies and private investigators, announces Passware Kit Forensic v11.3, which builds upon the product’s capabilities to recover Mac OS user login passwords from computer memory (see July 26, 2011 press release) by decrypting Mac hard disks encrypted with FileVault.

Passware emphasizes the importance of Mac forensics (according to the recent statistics on Mac platforms sales) and ability to handling full disk encryption as an essential part of eDiscovery with the latest release of Passware for instant FileVault decryption. The solution includes live target memory acquisition over FireWire and subsequent recovery of a FileVault encryption key. Computer forensics can now easily gain a FileVault encryption key from the target computer memory, which provides full access to the encrypted Mac hard disk. The full process takes no more than 40 minutes – regardless of the length or complexity of the password.

“Full disk encryption is becoming a major obstacle for digital investigations,” said Dmitry Sumin, president, Passware, Inc. “The latest version of Passware Kit Forensic offers multiple approaches to overcoming this problem, such as live memory analysis and extraction of encryption keys for BitLocker, TrueCrypt, and FileVault. This means forensic experts are better armed to approach investigative challenges with an effective and efficient solution that significantly reduces decryption time and thus allows investigators to focus on data analysis.”

Latest Features and Vulnerability Alert to Casual Mac Users

With the release of this feature, Passware also announces that the new Passware Kit Forensic 11.3:

recovers hashed passwords with Rainbow Tables

extracts passwords from encrypted Mac keychain files

builds a password list for its Dictionary attack based on the words detected in a computer memory

Supporting the solution’s ability to decrypt Mac hard disks encrypted with FileVault, other memory analysis options available with Passware Kit Forensic include decryption of TrueCrypt, BitLocker, and recovery of Mac user login passwords.

Having designed the latest features of Passware Kit Forensic for computer forensics, Passware alerts home users of the vulnerabilities of Mac encryption solutions and advises users to shut down their computers especially when working with confidential data. Sumin notes, “Live memory analysis opens up great possibilities to password recovery and decryption. Every user should be aware that even full disk encryption is insecure while the data rests in computer memory.”

Pricing and Availability

Passware Kit Forensic is available directly from Passware and a network of resellers worldwide. The price is $995 with one year of free updates. Additional product information and screen shots are available at http://www.lostpassword.com/kit-forensic.htm.

About Passware Inc.

Founded in 1998, Passware Inc. is the worldwide leading maker of password recovery, decryption, and electronic evidence discovery software. Law enforcement and government agencies, institutions, corporations and private investigators, help desk personnel, and thousands of private consumers rely on Passware software products to ensure data availability in the event of lost passwords. Passware customers include many Fortune 100 companies and various US federal and state agencies, such as IRS, US Army, US Department of Defense (DOD), US Department of Justice, US Department of Homeland Security, US Department of Transportation, US Postal Service, US Secret Service, US Senate, and US Supreme Court.

More information about Passware, Inc. is available at http://www.lostpassword.com/. Passware is a privately held corporation with headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. and a software development and engineering office in Moscow, Russia.



Currently we allow the following HTML tags in comments:

Single tags

These tags can be used alone and don't need an ending tag.

<br> Defines a single line break

<hr> Defines a horizontal line

Matching tags

These require an ending tag - e.g. <i>italic text</i>

<a> Defines an anchor

<b> Defines bold text

<big> Defines big text

<blockquote> Defines a long quotation

<caption> Defines a table caption

<cite> Defines a citation

<code> Defines computer code text

<em> Defines emphasized text

<fieldset> Defines a border around elements in a form

<h1> This is heading 1

<h2> This is heading 2

<h3> This is heading 3

<h4> This is heading 4

<h5> This is heading 5

<h6> This is heading 6

<i> Defines italic text

<p> Defines a paragraph

<pre> Defines preformatted text

<q> Defines a short quotation

<samp> Defines sample computer code text

<small> Defines small text

<span> Defines a section in a document

<s> Defines strikethrough text

<strike> Defines strikethrough text

<strong> Defines strong text

<sub> Defines subscripted text

<sup> Defines superscripted text

<u> Defines underlined text

Dark Reading encourages readers to engage in spirited, healthy debate, including taking us to task. However, Dark Reading moderates all comments posted to our site, and reserves the right to modify or remove any content that it determines to be derogatory, offensive, inflammatory, vulgar, irrelevant/off-topic, racist or obvious marketing/SPAM. Dark Reading further reserves the right to disable the profile of any commenter participating in said activities.

Disqus Tips To upload an avatar photo, first complete your Disqus profile. | View the list of supported HTML tags you can use to style comments. | Please read our commenting policy.
Subscribe to RSS



Advanced Threats Reports

report How Did They Get In? A Guide to Tracking Down The Source of an APT
If you think that your organization hasn't been affected by an advanced persistent threat, you probably haven't looked hard enough. Identifying that your organization is under attack is difficult enough; determining the scope of infiltration and damage presents a whole new level of challenge. To effectively protect against APTs, security pros will need to employ an arsenal of tools in a coordinated fashion, as well as develop new understandings of and approaches to system and data exploits. Here's a short and simple guide to this challenge.

report Detecting and Defending Against Advanced Persistent Threats
APTs are a growing problem for enterprises big and small. Protecting your organization from these targeted threats requires constant vigilance, ongoing employee training and a concerted effort to align security systems to address every phase of an APT. Companies also need to develop a remediation and response plan if, despite best efforts, defenses are breached.

report Smarter, Stealthier, Sneakier Malware
Increasingly sophisticated and targeted attacks are making it more difficult for organizations to detect and defend against the latest malware. In this compendium of recent coverage from Dark Reading, you?ll get a look at some of the newest -- and most dangerous -- malware on the Web, and what you can do to stop it.

Other reports from the Advanced Threats Tech Center:

Related Content

MOBILE SECURITY - Mapping an Ecosystem of Risk
This white paper highlights the various considerations for defending mobile applications-from the mobile application architecture itself to the myriad testing technologies needed to properly assess mobile applications risk.

Software Security Delivered in the Cloud
This Solution Guide details the automated, turnkey service that requires no special security assessment expertise. It details HP's market-leading static and dynamic analysis technologies that help organizations worldwide gain insight into the security state of their essential business applications.

SANS Mobility/BYOD Security Survey
This survey, which includes input from more than 500 IT professionals, explores how organizations are managing risk around their end user mobile devices as well as what level of policies and controls enterprises have around mobile usage.

Expert Guide to Application Security - Real-time Hybrid Analysis
Explore the next generation of hybrid security analysis - what it is, how it works, and its benefits. This white paper details how hybrid application security enables organizations to resolve critical software security issues faster and at a lower cost than any other available technology.

A Mainstay Partners Study: Does Application Security Pay?
Measuring the Business Impact of Software Security Assurance Solutions: a study of 17 organizations that implemented solutions from Fortify Software, combining industry research and benchmark analysis to identify, qualify, and quantify the full range of benefits seen from their SSA investments.




Featured Webcasts
Featured Whitepapers
Featured Reports