Comment Adds another layer to hardware solutions? (Score 4, Interesting) 260
Or the converse, I suppose (hardware solutions can add another layer to this). This looks like some very interesting work, and may have more applicability in general beyond this one scenario. I'm certainly looking forward to following their implementation as it comes along. But with that said, if this attack was a serious concern for a given entity there seem to be some obvious potential hardware solutions. The attack essentially depends on being able to shutdown the computer but keep the memory cold enough that the randomization time is slowed down tremendously, giving enough time to perform a dump of the contents onto another system for further analysis. Therefore, it can be prevented by, for example, having electric heater units surrounding the memory connected to a dedicated capacitor bank and temperature sensor, as well as a sensor to detect if someone tries for force open the machine (intrusion alarm). Then the system can perform a scram shutdown (or if it is just shutdown normally), and the heaters can assure that the memory is kept hot for a couple of seconds afterwards even in the face of attempted cooling. It only needs to manage it very briefly and then all the contents are scrambled. Other similar methods (maybe a really micro EMP inside a shield memory space) would be possible to, but basically they just need to deny an attacker for a very short amount of time or ensure entropy in the RAM and then the attack is useless.
Ultimately a dedicated hardware secure key store would be better and easier to integrate across all systems, and this more software solution of course has the massive advantage of being able to run for free on existing hardware. But the above could at least be retrofitted on nearly anything, and while it is more esoteric, then again so is the attack since it requires physical access.