Systems Security Seven for Dec. 11

Here are seven links that are worth the time that it takes to read them if you are interested in systems security.

The Evil Maid attacks again:

• ITPro article: Researchers break into Windows encryption feature,
• the original research behind the attack,
• article about Microsoft’s response.

Two Trusted Computing articles:

• “openSUSE is now the first operating system to offer full TC support” (from 11/24/2009)
• Trusted Computing in the Cloud: Towards Trusted Cloud Computing (from Hot Topics June 2009).

An introduction to Tin Hat Linux which is a Linux distribution based on hardened Gentoo which “was conceived as a challenge to the old mantra that physical access to a system means full access to the data”.

Everybody is talking about the botnet on AWS: Zeus botnet finds hold in Amazon cloud. From now on, I fully expect that stories about botnets controlled from within a cloud will become a footnote, rather than noteworthy and they will be served with standard takedown notices.