> How much should the average user worry about this? Not very much. Most
> notebooks from average users don't even have Firewire on them and you
> would have an easier time cracking them with a dictionary attack on
> the password and other such things, which means that this attack
> makes you no more vulnerable to compromise if you've already granted
> physical access than you were before.

you don't need a firewire port on your laptop, a pcmcia slot is enough
where an attacker inserts a firewire card. but still.. it's a physical
access attack..

regarding your other email:

> OK, I guess I misunderstood the original paper
> (http://www.sec-consult.com/fileadmin/Whitepapers/Vista_Physical_Attacks

> .pdf). It now looks to me like they are claiming they can disable
> password authentication *even while the system is not logged on* - do
> I have that right?

yes, if the system is off and you can turn it on (e.g. no bios or hdd
encryption passwords) you can bypass the logon screen. this is because
the tool searches for the function "MsvpPasswordValidate" in memory and
patches it to allow any password.

FD

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