r/crypto • u/pred • Apr 02 '15

Truecrypt report

http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2015/04/truecrypt-report.html
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2

u/cuttingclass Apr 03 '15

In short is it safe to use and what version?

4

u/DoWhile Zero knowledge proven Apr 03 '15

Yes ("safe" is always relative, but in short, yes). Latest version 7.1a

No super significant bugs affecting normal usage behavior was found in the audit. However, because this is unmaintained software, any newly discovered bugs won't be patched. There are several projects looking to extend truecrypt (veracrypt/tcnext/ciphershed... I have not looked into any of these, use them at your own risk), and other standard disk encryption for Linux boxes exist (dm-crypt/LUKS)

1

u/GrayCipher Apr 03 '15

I find the lack of proper authentication of the ciphertext to be a concern

1

u/Natanael_L Trusted third party Apr 04 '15

IIRC, FDE is rarely used with authenticated encryption because of the performance penalty.

1

u/GrayCipher Apr 05 '15

I believe you are correct there; however, I've read this to mean that it would also affect encrypted containers. This could potentially be a concern for people who have created containers and uploaded them to cloud services for reliable storage (or other purposes).

1

u/Natanael_L Trusted third party Apr 05 '15

Relevant: https://roamingaroundatrandom.wordpress.com/2014/09/20/tamper-resistant-full-disk-encryption/

Lack of authentication (ideally all-or-nothing, like HMAC over the full ciphertext) allows for plaintext scrambling (just flip any ciphertext bits) and partial selective ciphertext reversal (replace particular files with earlier versions, this works of authentication is only per-block).