Possibly Cracked TrueCrypt Account At The Center Of Stolen Military Documents Case

from the Federal-Backdoor-Installation dept

A little over a month ago, we covered a FOIA response (if you could call it that...) from the FBI concerning TrueCrypt, in which it withheld all 69 pages of responsive documents. In addition to the ridiculousness of much of the withheld information being easily-accessible online, there was the question about what this denial meant for TrueCrypt.

When the FBI withholds documents, it often does so because the subject of the FOIA involves an ongoing investigation. In this case, the FBI cited an FOIA exemption related to "trade secrets and commercial information," which none of this was. So, why all the secrecy? Perhaps it was just the agency's default mode taking over. Or maybe it had something to do with TrueCrypt's sudden decision to halt development and declare the software "insecure." Had the FBI managed to "break" TrueCrypt or was its lack of a reponse to this request a signal that it was talking to the people behind it?

What is certain is that the FBI has been able to gain access to a TrueCrypt user's account.

Scott Glenn, a 35-year-old Harris Corp. employee working at a US military base in Honduras, apparently made off with documents considered to be "military secrets."

In January, he admitted he hacked into the base commander's classified email account and copied thousands of messages and more than 350 attached documents, much of which dealt with U.S. military plans and information regarding the Middle East.

The judge who sentenced Glenn to 10 years in prison asserted Glenn grabbed these documents out of a desire to "damage" the "security" of the United States. His lawyer had argued that Glenn was nothing more than a "technological hoarder" -- someone who collects this sort of stuff just to be collecting it. He pointed to Glenn's retention of a secretary's hard drive that had no discernible value to anyone as evidence of Glenn's "hoarding" habit. He also pointed out Glenn never tried to distribute the documents or attempted to use them for financial gain.

Glenn, however, has both a troubled legal past and a hazy legal future. He has previously been expelled from a military base for committing benefits fraud and hacking into US databases for Iraqi businesses. He's also being investigated for "sexually exploiting" Honduran minors.

But the nexus point for this stash of military documents was TrueCrypt.

Glenn read up on the art of espionage and used an elaborate encryption system, TrueCrypt, with a decoy computer drive to distract investigators from another hidden drive that he protected with a complex 30-character password, army counterintelligence expert Gerald Parsons testified.

The FBI's counterintelligence squad in South Florida was able to crack Glenn's code, Parsons said.

Parsons said he didn't know how the FBI agents did it but he estimated it would have taken "billions" of years to crack the code using traditional methods.

This should be a bit concerning for TrueCrypt users. Either Glenn's password was cracked (rather than TrueCrypt's encryption) or the questions raised about the predictability of the random-number generator behind the encryption method have some validity. Because "traditional methods" would still be underway -- at least according to the expert presented by the prosecutors -- something else had to give. The most likely explanation is that Glenn gave up his password or had it trapped by a keylogger or other government surveillance software. The FBI has tried to crack TrueCrypt's encryption before and had no luck.

With many documents related to the case still sealed, it's unclear what the government's expert meant by "cracked." It likely means TrueCrypt is as secure as it has been, but its appearance in a case centering on a decrypted hard drive doesn't exactly encourage the throwing of caution to the wind.

Filed Under: encryption, fbi, investigation, scott glenn, truecrypt

FBI Withholds 69 Pages of TrueCrypt-Related Documents, Most Of Which Can Already Be Found Online

from the DEFAULT:-HIDE dept

Weird TrueCrypt-related things keep happening. Over the past few years, TrueCrypt has gone from "recommended by Snowden!" to a service of questionable trustworthiness. To begin with, it was never clear who exactly was behind TrueCrypt and the lack of a recent security audit wasn't winning it many new converts.

Things went from somewhat bad to disturbingly worse when, shortly after the first phase of the audit was completed, a post went up at SourceForge declaring the software insecure and that all development had been halted. The post pushed users towards BitLocker. Further development was left to the public and more testing seemed to indicate it was still trustworthy, even though it relied on possibly predictable random number generator.

Whether or not TrueCrypt can fully be trusted remains up in the air. But there's some indication that the FBI has taken an interest (probably an unhealthy one) in TrueCrypt's inner workings.

Techdirt reader dfed sends in a tweet from security researcher Runa Sandvik, along with a link to her FOIA request to the FBI for TrueCrypt-related documents. What has been "returned" to her has been completely withheld, all 69 pages of it. The FBI cites FOIA exemption b(4) which covers "trade secrets and commercial and financial information."

The documents that won't be making their way to Sandvik appear to be three technical articles not written by FBI personnel and ones that have appeared elsewhere in unredacted form.

In further explanation of the withholding, the material consists of three, copyrighted articles: Easy to Crack USB Thumbdrives, March 12, 2008 by Daniel Bachfeld; EEEP Net: "FOUO Network", April 2014 by Greg Fulk; Techno Forensics Conference, October 2007 at NIST by Dave Reiser, and a training slide presentation, Anti-Forensics, November 2, 2007 by Secure Computing.

The 2008 article may be somewhat related to the FBI's failed attempt to crack TrueCrypt encryption protecting hard drives owned by Brazilian banker Daniel Dantas, who was suspected of several financial crimes. The Brazilian government asked for the FBI's help after spending five months of its own attempting the same thing. A year later, the drives remained intact.

The thing is, Daniel Bachfeld's article on crackable USB drives can be found online. And it was previously published in a German tech magazine. Once again, we see a government agency withholding publicly-available information simply because that's its natural tendency: to keep requesters and requested documents as far away from each other as possible.

The presentation by Dave Reiser was given at a conference that is open to members of the public, as well as the law enforcement community, so there's no reason for secrecy there. And Paul A. Henry's anti-forensics presentation, which discusses TrueCrypt, can be found online as well.

So, why is the FBI holding these back? Nothing in these papers discusses anything that could possibly be considered a "trade secret." If these are secrets, they're pretty open. Searching for "anti-forensics" turns up a wealth of scholarly papers and presentations that discuss both encryption and TrueCrypt.

This is just the FBI obfuscating for obfuscation's sake. But its knee-jerk reaction to withhold everything in its entirety also suggests something slightly more troubling. Either the intelligence/investigative arms of the US government have found a way in (by obtaining keys or compromising the RNG) or they're still very actively involved in trying to do so. Neither bodes particularly well for TrueCrypt users.

Filed Under: fbi, foia, redaction, truecrypt

Security Audit Of TrueCrypt Doesn't Find Any Backdoors -- But What Will Happen To TrueCrypt?

from the questions-still-left-to-be-answered dept

Over the past few years we've followed the saga of TrueCrypt. The popular and widely used full disk encryption system got some attention soon after the initial Snowden leaks when people started realizing that no one really knew who was behind TrueCrypt, and that the software had not been fully audited. Cryptographer Matthew Green decided to lead an effort to audit TrueCrypt. A year ago, the team released the first phase, finding a few small vulnerabilities, but no backdoors and nothing too serious. This week the full audit was completed and again finds no evidence of any backdoors planted in the code. Matthew Green's blog post on the report provides the key details, which notes a few small issues that should be fixed, but nothing too serious:

The TL;DR is that based on this audit, Truecrypt appears to be a relatively well-designed piece of crypto software. The NCC audit found no evidence of deliberate backdoors, or any severe design flaws that will make the software insecure in most instances.

That doesn't mean Truecrypt is perfect. The auditors did find a few glitches and some incautious programming -- leading to a couple of issues that could, in the right circumstances, cause Truecrypt to give less assurance than we'd like it to.

For example: the most significant issue in the Truecrypt report is a finding related to the Windows version of Truecrypt's random number generator (RNG), which is responsible for generating the keys that encrypt Truecrypt volumes. This is an important piece of code, since a predictable RNG can spell disaster for the security of everything else in the system.

However, as Green notes, the problem with the way its implemented in TrueCrypt would only be a problem in "extremely" rare circumstances that wouldn't impact most users. But it's still something that could be fixed.

But that's where the problem lies. As you may recall, in the midst of all of this, the still anonymous developers behind TrueCrypt suddenly announced that it wasn't secure and that all development had ceased. There have been some efforts to fork and rescue TrueCrypt, but that's come with some skepticism as people feared what might be hidden in the code (and also some concerns about the TrueCrypt license.

Hopefully this new audit puts at least some of those concerns to rest (though it's always good to be paranoid when building security software) and people do really put an effort developing an updated version of TrueCrypt. For what it's worth, I've seen a bunch of articles claiming the audit shows that TrueCrypt is safe. That's not quite true. It's just saying they didn't find anything -- which should be very re-assuring, but you can never say with 100% certainty that the code is safe. Either way, what's needed now is more development moving forward.

Filed Under: audit, backdoors, encryption, full disk encryption, matthew green, security, truecrypt

Security Experts Looking To Possibly Fork And Rescue TrueCrypt

from the not-a-surprise dept

People are still trying to figure out what the hell happened with TrueCrypt suddenly announcing that development had stopped and that the code was not secure. However, as people sort that out, the same folks who were leading the charge on the TrueCrypt audit have announced that they're looking into the possibility of picking up the TrueCrypt project and running with it themselves. The idea would be to complete the security audit, but then start managing a fork of the project themselves. They haven't fully committed to this, but it sounds like that's what they'd like to do. Yet another example of how open source projects are quite handy.

Filed Under: encryption, fork, security, security audit, truecrypt

TrueCrypt Page Says It's Not Secure, All Development Stopped

from the uh... dept

Last fall, we noted that the popular disk encryption software TrueCrypt was undergoing a security audit, inspired by the Snowden revelations. At issue: TrueCrypt is open source and widely used and promoted (hell, Snowden himself apparently taught people how to use it), but no one really knew who was behind it -- raising all sorts of questions. A little over a month ago, we noted that the first phase of the audit didn't find any backdoors, but did note a few (mostly) minor vulnerabilities.

However, a little while ago, TrueCrypt's SourceForge page suddenly announced that " WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues" and furthermore: "The development of TrueCrypt was ended in 5/2014 after Microsoft terminated support of Windows XP." While some initially questioned if this was a hoax, others quickly noted that a new version of the program was signed with the official TrueCrypt private key -- meaning that it's either legit, or TrueCrypt's private key has been compromised (which would obviously present another serious issue). If you happen to use TrueCrypt, you should be very, very careful right now.

Filed Under: development, disk encryption, encryption, privacy, security, truecrypt

Snowden Ran A Major Tor Exit Relay, Hosted CryptoParty In Hawaii While Waiting For Greenwald To Reply

from the teaching-tor-and-truecrypt dept

Kevin Poulsen over at Wired has the interesting story of how Ed Snowden both ran a CryptoParty in Hawaii while waiting to hear back from Glenn Greenwald after his first email, and also apparently hosted a Tor node. In October of 2012, we wrote about the CryptoParty movement, launched by digital rights activist Asher Wolf, and apparently Snowden thought it was a good idea as well. The details seem fairly straightforward, though it does suggest (yet again) that he was legitimately interested in protecting the American public, rather than (as some continue to argue) working for some "foreign power." At the CryptoParty, he apparently taught folks how to use TrueCrypt and Tor.

Perhaps more interesting is the news that he ran a Tor exit relay. The story kicks off with Snowden emailing Runa Sandvik, a key Tor developer, asking if she can send him some Tor stickers that he can pass around at work. It's long been noted that Snowden has a Tor sticker (along with an EFF sticker) on the laptop he uses, but now we know where and how he got it. But in that email, he noted that he ran a "major tor exit" relay:

In his e-mail, Snowden wrote that he personally ran one of the “major tor exits”–a 2 gbps server named “TheSignal”–and was trying to persuade some unnamed coworkers at his office to set up additional servers. He didn’t say where he worked. But he wanted to know if Sandvik could send him a stack of official Tor stickers....

“He said he had been talking some of the more technical guys at work into setting up some additional fast servers, and figured some swag might incentivize them to do it sooner rather than later,” Sandvik says. “I later learned that he ran more than one Tor exit relay.”

Of course, some may also point out that one minor weakness in Tor is that malicious exit node operators can do some spying on users -- at least opening up the question of whether or not Snowden was running that exit relay for himself (and being good about it) or running it for the NSA.

Either way, to get the stickers, Snowden gave Sandvik his real name and address, and she mentioned plans to be in Hawaii, leading to the idea of hosting a CryptoParty, which turned into reality:

Sandvik began by giving her usual Tor presentation, then Snowden stood in front of the white board and gave a 30- to 40-minute introduction to TrueCrypt, an open-source full disk encryption tool. He walked through the steps to encrypt a hard drive or a USB stick. “Then we did an impromptu joint presentation on how to set up and run a Tor relay,” Sandvik says. “He was definitely a really, really smart guy. There was nothing about Tor that he didn’t already know.”

“Everything ran very smoothly,” she adds. “There were no questions about how to do things or where to put the chairs. Maybe he’s just really good at organizing events.”

As for the timing, Snowden apparently emailed Greenwald for the first time 11 days before the party, and was still waiting for a reply when the party happened...

Filed Under: asher wolf, crypto party, cryptoparty, ed snowden, runa sandvik, tor, truecrypt

First Phase Of Security Audit Finds Vulnerabilities But No Backdoors In TrueCrypt Encryption Software

from the more-work-needed,-and-more-donations dept

In the wake of the serious Heartbleed flaw in OpenSSL, more people are becoming aware of how widely used and important open source encryption tools are, and how their security is too often taken for granted. Some people were already worrying about this back in September last year, when we learned that the NSA had intentionally undermined encryption by weakening standards and introducing backdoors. As Techdirt reported, that led to a call for a security audit of TrueCrypt, a very popular open source disk encryption tool. Fortunately, the Open Crypto Audit Project raised a goodly sum of money through FundFill and IndieGogo, which allowed the first phase of the audit to be funded. Here's what's now been done (pdf):

The Open Crypto Audit Project engaged iSEC Partners to review select parts of the TrueCrypt 7.1a disk encryption software. This included reviewing the bootloader and Windows kernel driver for any system backdoors as well as any other security related issues.

The good news:

iSEC found no evidence of backdoors or otherwise intentionally malicious code in the assessed areas.

However, it did still find vulnerabilities in the code it examined:

the iSEC team identified eleven (11) issues in the assessed areas. Most issues were of severity Medium (four (4) found) or Low (four (4) found), with an additional three (3) issues having severity Informational (pertaining to Defense in Depth).

Overall, the source code for both the bootloader and the Windows kernel driver did not meet expected standards for secure code. This includes issues such as lack of comments, use of insecure or deprecated functions, inconsistent variable types, and so forth.

Because of that, among the recommendations that iSEC made was the following:

Improve code quality. Due to lax quality standards, TrueCrypt source is difficult to review and maintain. This will make future bugs harder to find and correct. It also makes the learning curve steeper for those who wish to join the TrueCrypt project.

That's an important point, and probably something that other open source projects might take to heart, too. Some have called into question whether Linus's Law -- that "all bugs are shallow, given enough eyeballs" -- is really true for free software (although Eric Raymond, author of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", has offered a robust defense of that claim.) One reason why those eyeballs may not be finding the bugs is that the code, though open, is unnecessarily hard to read.

The fact that vulnerabilities were found -- even if "all appear to be unintentional, introduced as the result of bugs rather than malice" as iSEC puts it -- is another reason why the second phase of the audit, which will look at the details of how the cryptographic functions have been implemented, is necessary. The discovery of "issues" in TrueCrypt's code also underlines why similar audits need to be conducted for all important open source security programs: if there are vulnerabilities in TrueCrypt, there are likely to be more elsewhere, perhaps much more serious. Finding them is largely a question of money, which is why companies currently free-riding on free software -- perfectly legally -- should start seriously thinking about making some voluntary contributions to help audit and improve them to prevent another Heartbleed.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: encryption, open source, security audit, truecrypt

NSA Has Spurred Renewed Interest In Thorough Security Audits Of Popular 'Secure' Software

from the skepticism-is-a-good-thing dept

In yet another bit of fallout from the NSA surveillance efforts -- and, specifically, the NSA's covert takeover of security standards to insert vulnerabilities -- it appears that there's suddenly much more skepticism towards well-known security offerings. This is a good thing. There have already been some revelations concerning attempts to compromise Tor, and security researcher Matthew Green has now called for a thorough security audit of TrueCrypt, the (very) popular disk encryption tool. Green and some others have kicked off the project on the aptly named website IsTrueCryptAuditedYet.com.

As Green notes, he is not suggesting that TrueCrypt is not secure, or that it's been compromised, but that in this day and age, security software needs to be properly audited -- and, if anything, hopefully the results of such an audit will be either more secure software or more confidence that TrueCrypt really is secure.

Maybe nothing at all. Rest assured if I knew of a specific problem with Truecrypt, this post would have a very different title -- something with exclamation points and curse words and much wry humor. Let me be clear: I am not implying anything like this. Not even a little.

The 'problem' with Truecrypt is the same problem we have with any popular security software in the post-September-5 era: we don't know what to trust anymore. We have hard evidence that the NSA is tampering with encryption software and hardware, and common sense tells us that NSA is probably not alone. Truecrypt, as popular and widely trusted as it is, makes a fantastic target for subversion.

But quite frankly there are other things that worry me about Truecrypt. The biggest one is that nobody knows who wrote it. This skeeves me out. As Dan Kaminsky puts it, 'authorship is a better predictor of quality than openness'. I would feel better if I knew who the TrueCrypt authors were.

Now please don't take this the wrong way: anonymity is not a crime. It's possible the Truecrypt developers are magical security elves who are simply trying to protect their vital essence. More prosaically, perhaps they live in a country where privacy advocates aren't as revered as they are in the US. (I kid.)

Hopefully, the end result of this new found skepticism towards popular security products will lead to a world in which we really are more secure, rather than one in which the NSA just has people thinking they're more secure.

Filed Under: audits, matthew green, nsa, nsa surveillance, security, truecrypt