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Everything about Cold boot attack

Means of compromising computer security by restarting the computer

In computer security, a cold boot attack is a type of side channel attack in which an attacker with physical access to a computer performs a memory dump of a computer's random-access memory (RAM) by performing a hard reset of the target machine. Typically, cold boot attacks are used for retrieving encryption keys from a running operating system for malicious or criminal investigative reasons. The attack relies on the data remanence property of DRAM and SRAM to retrieve memory contents that remain readable in the seconds to minutes following a power switch-off. Wikipedia →

🧭 Start here: a 6-step reading path

  1. Read the overview: Cold boot attackA 5-minute orientation
  2. Skim a recent paper: Ultra-fast data sanitization of SRAM by back-biasing to resist a cold boot attackInfluential work since 2022
  3. Pick up a classic book: American FilmThe most-reprinted book on the subject
  4. Read the landmark paper: Lest we forget: Cold-boot attacks on scrambled DDR3 memoryCited 38 times
  5. Go sideways: TRESORA closely related topic
  6. Go sideways: Disk encryptionA closely related topic

📖 Definitions

Noun A type of sidechannel attack in which somebody with physical access to a computer is able to retrieve encryption keys from a running operating system after a reboot. It relies on the fact that the contents of memory can still be read for a short period after power is cut off.

🗂️ The subject at a glance

  1. Technical details
  2. Uses
  3. Circumventing full disk encryption
  4. Effective countermeasures
  5. Ineffective countermeasures
  6. Smartphones

🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)

🆕 Influential since 2022

📚 Books worth reading

Ranked by number of editions on Open Library, a rough measure of how lasting a book is.

🔗 Related topics