From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

The researchers cracked several widely used disk encryption technologies, including Microsoft's BitLocker, Apple's FileVault, TrueCrypt, and dm-crypt. These "secure" disk encryption systems are supposed to protect sensitive information if a computer is stolen or otherwise accessed. However, in a paper and video published on the Internet today, the researchers show that data is vulnerable because encryption keys and passwords stored in a computer's temporary memory -- or RAM -- do not disappear immediately after losing power.

"These types of attacks were often thought to be in the realm of the NSA," said Jacob Appelbaum, an independent computer security researcher and member of the research team. "But we discovered that on most computers, even without power applied for several seconds, data stored in RAM seemed to remain when power was reapplied, We then wrote programs to collect the contents of memory after the computers were rebooted."

Laptops are particularly vulnerable to this attack, especially when they are turned on but locked, or in a "sleep" or "hibernation" mode entered when the laptop's cover is shut. Even though the machines require a password to unlock the screen, the encryption keys are already located in the RAM, which provides an opportunity for attackers with malicious intent.

The article continues to state that nearly all encrypting technologies may experience this vulnerability due to their common architcture. I guess many other drive encrypting technologies use RAM to store encryption keys. Understanding this, this news once fully vetted is sure to shake up the industry.

Read the full piece at: http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2008/02/21-0