silversurfer
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- Aug 17, 2014
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Security researchers find a new way to disable current cold boot attack firmware security measures to steal sensitive data from high-value computers.
Security researchers will detail today a new variation of a cold boot attack that can meddle with a computer's firmware to disable security measures and allow an attacker to recover sensitive data stored on that computer, such as passwords, corporate files, and more.
The attack, which is presented today at a security conference, is a variation of old cold boot attacks, known for nearly a decade.
Cold boot attacks are when an attacker forces a computer reset/reboot and then steals any data left over in the RAM.
All cold boot attacks require physical access and special hardware tooling to perform, and are generally not considered a threat vector for normal users, but only for computers storing highly-sensitive information, or for high-value individuals such as government officials or businessmen.