First Phase of TrueCrypt Audit Turns Up No Backdoors

msm1267 (2804139) writes "A initial audit of the popular open source encryption software TrueCrypt turned up fewer than a dozen vulnerabilities, none of which so far point toward a backdoor surreptitiously inserted into the codebase. A report on the first phase of the audit was released today (PDF) by iSEC Partners, which was contracted by the Open Crypto Audit Project (OCAP), a grassroots effort that not only conducted a successful fundraising effort to initiate the audit, but raised important questions about the integrity of the software.

The first phase of the audit focused on the TrueCrypt bootloader and Windows kernel driver; architecture and code reviews were performed, as well as penetration tests including fuzzing interfaces, said Kenneth White, senior security engineer at Social & Scientific Systems. The second phase of the audit will look at whether the various encryption cipher suites, random number generators and critical key algorithms have been implemented correctly."

Wow

[cold fjord]

Wow, a code audit. What a great idea for a FOSS project. [openbsd.org]

Re:Bootloader & Windows Driver

[Anonymous Coward]

What? I should probably assume you are joking, but in case you are not:

This is a stupid statement. If someone is American and they have a bank account in another country, both are able to be true. They are an American with an off shore bank account. Similarly, just because the NSA is American and have impacted the concept of security does not mean that Americans can not evaluate or produce secure code. And just to be more antagonizing than you are being, guess what? you used 'American' and 'security' in the same sentence while trying to explain that its impossible to do so. In fact, the NSA is an American agency and I would say that they have been leading the way in developing methods of intrusion, and circumventing security. So clearly Americans understand security so well, we know how to get around what exists today. Anyone hiring you for anything other than to take food orders is either stupid or naive.

Re:memset() is bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.viva64.com/en/b/017... [viva64.com]

Re:memset() is bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.securecoding.cert.org/confluence/display/cplusplus/MSC06-CPP.+Be+aware+of+compiler+optimization+when+dealing+with+sensitive+data

Re:memset() is bad?

[canajin56]

As a special case, MSVC++ removes memset(array,value,sizeof(array)) if array isn't read again before the end of its scope.

For example

void Foo()
{
char password[MAX_PASSWORD_LEN];
InputPassword(password);
ProcessPassword(password);
memset(password, 0, sizeof(password));
}

The MS compiler will delete the memset. In Windows you should use RtlSecureZeroMemory to zero out memory you want to keep secure.

Re:Bootloader & Windows Driver

[epyT-R]

The crypto is implemented in the driver, as well as the bootloader. The application known as truecrypt just flips their configuration bits around, loads keys into ram, and tells the driver when to mount/dismount containers etc. The bootloader needs to know enough to mount the system partition and hook into BIOS so that the regular OS bootloader can take over using it's normal calls. Once it loads the kernel and related drivers, truecrypt.sys takes over handling container IO.

  The separate formatting utility probably contains some too since it's used to create containers..

Re:Hard to understate

[wonkey_monkey]

Hard to understate

It's not really important at all.

There, that was easy.

Or, assuming the AC meant "overstate":

Without this audit the lives of every person on this planet are doomed to end in fiery death when the Earth plummets into the Sun in 2017!

Also easy.