[CA Conservative]

According to the article, the chips have to be cooled within seconds of the system shutting down to be able to recover the key from DRAM. That essentially means someone would have to steal a laptop that is still running to get the key. I’m not sure how big of a vulnerability this is in the real world.

[shorty_harris]

Yeah, the moral of the story is if you see someone you don’t know with a dewar of LN2 and a screwdriver hanging around your computer, you should become suspicious...

[sionnsar]

It's a sufficient vulnerability. Many years ago I remember using DRAM retention for some useful purpose (forgotten) that involved placing data in DRAM, cold-booting the machine, and reading the data in.

You'd likely get the same effect today by rebooting with a bootable CD or USB drive.

[sionnsar]

No, cooling the chips extends the time in which you are likely to get the actual data. Room temperature can sufficient, if the boot time is short.

[TChad]

That essentially means someone would have to steal a laptop that is still running to get the key. I’m not sure how big of a vulnerability this is in the real world.

From here:

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.

Plenty of laptop users use hibernation.