Do NOT use SHA-1: LUKS disk encryption

What the..?

As the cryptography expert Bruce Schneier already told in year 2005, do not use SHA-1 because its broken. See his article here: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/02/sha1_broken.html

Several years ago, many governments also recommended to stop using this one.

Does linux LUKS use SHA-1?

Yes it does by default. 

Just create a Volume/Container with default values (e.g. cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/loop0).

Did you use the debian installer to encrypt your LUKS device? Same thing.

How do i verify if i use SHA-1 on LUKS?

Thats simple. 

Just fire up "cryptsetup luksDump" on your encrypted volume. (e.g. cryptsetup luksDump /dev/loop0)

Which Hash should i alternatively use?

At time of writing (year 2013) and in this context, we recommend SHA512. 

Can i change the current hash in LUKS on-the-fly?

No you can NOT. You need to re-encrypt your device. There is a experimental tool from the authors of cryptsetup, called "cryptsetup-reencrypt" which is included in the official source-code. We succeeded in reencrypting a system-volume encrypted with aes and sha-1 hash, and switched to twofish as encryption algorithm and sha512 as hash  by the command: 

./cryptsetup-reencrypt -c  twofish-xts-plain -h sha512 /dev/loop0

Please be very careful and use a backup before using this tool!

So, i am insecure when not switching?

It depends. For the most people the default settings are secure. In LUKS we also have PBKDF2 in front of, which prevents/reduces many forms of attacks. 

The main reason is: why should i use something insecure like SHA-1? Just for comfort? 

Attacking the Windows 7/8 Address ASLR

The following text is what looks like an attempt to circumvent windows 7 and windows 8 memory protections in order to execute arbritrary assembly code. The presented methods are in particular useful for client-side attacks as used for example in browser exploits.

The topic that is discussed is a very complex one. At the time I started the research I thought the idea behind the attack will be applied to real-world scenarios quick and easy. I had to be convinced by the opposite.
The research was done without knowing much about the real internals of the windows memory space protection but rather using brute force, trial & failure in order to achieve what will be presented in the upcoming text. Be warned - the methods to attack the protection mechanisms hereby presented are not
failsafe and can be improved. Tough in many cases it is possible tocompletely bypass Windows 7 and especially Windows 8 ASLR by using thetechniques.


- Read more -

Securing Windows with EMET

The enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) is designed to

 help prevent hackers from gaining access to your system. 

Software vulnerabilities and exploits have become an everyday part of life. Virtually every product has to deal with them and consequently, users are faced with a stream of security updates. For users who get attacked before the latest updates have been applied or who get attacked before an update is even available, the results can be devastating: malware, loss of PII, etc. 

Security mitigation technologies are designed to make it more difficult for an attacker to exploit vulnerabilities in a given piece of software. EMET allows users to manage these technologies on their system and provides several unique benefits:

Read Installation  Instructions