Re: Locking Page in Memory

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#4154

From: prunesquallor
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 12:28

32 lines
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"Jonathan Benedicto"  wrote>
> Write over the memory with 0's. Eg:
>
> AnsiString Key = "123456799";
>
> DoSomething( Key );
>
> SecureZeroMemory( Key.c_str(), Key.Length() );

The problem is that this can happen:

AnsiString Key = "123456799";
[Process ends timeslice; machine is heavily overtasked; page including key 
thrown out to disk]
.
.
.
[Process recovered and continues when gets next timeslice]
DoSomething( Key );
SecureZeroMemory( Key.c_str(), Key.Length() );

So we end up with the key out on the disk. Whilst the probability may be 
low, one factor will be the length of time DoSomething(Key) takes - the 
longer that is, the more likely it is that at some point the key will end up 
on the disk. DoSomething() could be quite long - if a user is encrypting a 
big chunk of disk they are not going to want to type in the key/passphrase 
repeatedly.

ATB

John B

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From: "prunesquallor" <prunesquallor@proproco.co.uk>
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Subject: Re: Locking Page in Memory
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 12:28:29 -0000
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