Is Linux hard disk encryption hacked?
Ivan, an anarchist who has been in pre-trial detention in France for some time, reported in a letter that French police were able to gain access to the contents of his laptop.1 The laptop in question had an encrypted Ubuntu Linux installed. Another device with Windows installed and encrypted with Bitlocker could not be accessed. Ivan explained in his letter that he had used a 20-digit password consisting of letters, numbers and special characters for the system.
TL;DR
No, the Linux disk encryption has neither been cracked nor is it “insecure”. The performance of the technology as well as the algorithms have evolved, so the encryption settings should be checked and updated if necessary.
Table Of Contents
Since then, there have been discussions on the web and in our environment about how this was possible, whether an outdated crypto algorithm in Ivan’s Ubuntu installation was to blame, and what this means for the security of other Linux systems. We even received claims that the encryption of the Tails operating system – which is also a Linux system – was not secure due to outdated algorithms. The topic of device encryption is not easily accessible to many, so we’d like to frame the discussion a bit with this post.
Continue reading 30/04 2023, Is Linux hard disk encryption hacked?