• Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
MUST READ

SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 55

 | 

Security Affairs newsletter Round 534 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION

 | 

Law enforcement operations seized BlackSuit ransomware gang’s darknet sites

 | 

Arizona woman sentenced for aiding North Korea in U.S. IT job fraud scheme

 | 

Operation CargoTalon targets Russia’s aerospace with EAGLET malware,

 | 

Unpatched flaw in EoL LG LNV5110R cameras lets hackers gain Admin access

 | 

Koske, a new AI-Generated Linux malware appears in the threat landscape

 | 

Mitel patches critical MiVoice MX-ONE Auth bypass flaw

 | 

Coyote malware is first-ever malware abusing Windows UI Automation

 | 

SonicWall fixed critical flaw in SMA 100 devices exploited in Overstep malware attacks

 | 

DSPM & AI Are Booming: $17.87B and $4.8T Markets by 2033

 | 

Stealth backdoor found in WordPress mu-Plugins folder

 | 

U.S. CISA adds CrushFTP, Google Chromium, and SysAid flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

U.S. CISA urges FCEB agencies to fix two Microsoft SharePoint flaws immediately and added them to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

Sophos fixed two critical Sophos Firewall vulnerabilities

 | 

French Authorities confirm XSS.is admin arrested in Ukraine

 | 

Microsoft linked attacks on SharePoint flaws to China-nexus actors

 | 

Cisco confirms active exploitation of ISE and ISE-PIC flaws

 | 

SharePoint under fire: new ToolShell attacks target enterprises

 | 

CrushFTP zero-day actively exploited at least since July 18

 | 
  • Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
  • Home
  • Breaking News
  • Security
  • Are you still using TrueCrypt? Beware of these 2 critical flaws!

Are you still using TrueCrypt? Beware of these 2 critical flaws!

Pierluigi Paganini September 30, 2015

The popular security expert James Forshaw has discovered two critical flaws in the driver that TrueCrypt installs on Windows systems.

Bad news for Windows users who have decided to use TrueCrypt to encrypt their hard drives, the researcher James Forshaw, a member of Google’s Project Zero team, has discovered two serious vulnerabilities affecting the popular application.

Despite the development of the TrueCrypt has been interrupted in May 2014 by its developers, the application is one of the most popular application for the encryption of user data.

The original authors of TrueCrypt warned users about the possible presence of “unfixed security issues” and invited them to switch to BitLocker, the full-disk encryption feature implemented by Microsoft.

James Forshaw has discovered two flaws in the driver that TrueCrypt installs on Windows systems.

It is curious to note that none of the previous audits has uncovered of these flaws in the TrueCrypt application. In particular, a team of researcher conducted an analysis that lasted two years and that was arranged in two distinct phases. In the first phase the experts analyzed the blueprints of the software and discovered only 11 issues of medium and low severity in the software.

In the second phase, that was recently terminated, the experts examined TrueCrypt’s implementation of random number generators and critical key algorithms, and several encryption cipher suites.

truecrypt 2

Security Auditors and Cryptography Experts at NCC decided to analyze TrueCrypt software in response to documents leaked by Edward Snowden that hypothesized the presence of a backdoor in the application.

“TrueCrypt appears to be a relatively well-designed piece of crypto software,” cryptographic expert Matthew Green explained in a blog post. “The NCC audit found no evidence of deliberate backdoors, or any severe design flaws that will make the software insecure in most instances.” “You can find the full report over at the Open Crypto Audit Project website. Those who want to read it themselves should do so. This post will only give a brief summary.”

At that time, the experts discovered four different vulnerabilities, but none of them could be exploited by attackers to compromise TrueCrypt. The vulnerabilities and related severity are listed below:

  • Keyfile mixing is not cryptographically sound — Low severity
  • Unauthenticated ciphertext in volume headers — Undetermined
  • CryptAcquireContext may silently fail in unusual scenarios — High severity
  • AES implementation susceptible to cache timing attacks — High severity

Now, Forshaw explains that an attacker can exploit the vulnerability to obtain elevated privileges on a system if they have access to a limited user account.

@ClausHoumann @matthew_d_green isec phase 1 audit reviewed this specific code but windows drivers are complex beasts easy to miss local eop.

— James Forshaw (@tiraniddo) 28 Settembre 2015

Forshaw hasn’t disclosed the details about the two vulnerabilities because he intends to wait seven days for the discovery or the release of a security update to fix the issue.

@v998n @VeraCrypt_IDRIX I don’t tend to open up security bug reports until 7 days or so after the release of the patch, just in case 🙂

— James Forshaw (@tiraniddo) 27 Settembre 2015

Who will fix the flaws in TrueCrypt?

For sure the bugs won’t be fixed by the original authors however the vulnerabilities (CVE-2015-7358 and CVE-2015-7359) appear to have been fixed in VeraCrypt, a spin-off of the TrueCrypt original project.

VeraCrypt 1.15 that was released last week contains the patches for the two vulnerabilities discovered by Forshaw, as well as for other bugs.

Users who still use TrueCrypt should start to use VeraCrypt to avoid problems, its developers have already fixed many security issues affecting the original software.

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – TrueCrypt,  hacking)


facebook linkedin twitter

BitLocker encryption Hacking security audit TrueCrypt VeraCrypt

you might also like

Pierluigi Paganini July 27, 2025
SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 55
Read more
Pierluigi Paganini July 27, 2025
Security Affairs newsletter Round 534 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION
Read more

leave a comment

newsletter

Subscribe to my email list and stay
up-to-date!

    recent articles

    SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 55

    Malware / July 27, 2025

    Security Affairs newsletter Round 534 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION

    Breaking News / July 27, 2025

    Law enforcement operations seized BlackSuit ransomware gang’s darknet sites

    Cyber Crime / July 26, 2025

    Arizona woman sentenced for aiding North Korea in U.S. IT job fraud scheme

    Intelligence / July 26, 2025

    Operation CargoTalon targets Russia’s aerospace with EAGLET malware,

    Intelligence / July 25, 2025

    To contact me write an email to:

    Pierluigi Paganini :
    pierluigi.paganini@securityaffairs.co

    LEARN MORE

    QUICK LINKS

    • Home
    • Cyber Crime
    • Cyber warfare
    • APT
    • Data Breach
    • Deep Web
    • Digital ID
    • Hacking
    • Hacktivism
    • Intelligence
    • Internet of Things
    • Laws and regulations
    • Malware
    • Mobile
    • Reports
    • Security
    • Social Networks
    • Terrorism
    • ICS-SCADA
    • POLICIES
    • Contact me

    Copyright@securityaffairs 2024

    We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
    Cookie SettingsAccept All
    Manage consent

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities...
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT