Intel Discovers SandForce SF-2281 Controller Can't Do AES-256 Encryption, Offers Return Program

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• shatteredstone - Monday, June 11, 2012 - link

  AES-256 has been broken to below AES-128-level security (they are at approximately 2^100 complexity with -256 and still closer to ^128 with -128 IIRC)
  
  https://cryptolux.org/FAQ_on_the_attacks has some high level answers. The point being that anybody worried about their security after this screwup by Sandforce was not doing their job before (or is bound by needless bureaucracy which is not informed by facts).

• AllYourBaseAreBelong2Us - Monday, June 11, 2012 - link

  The AES-256 weakness is within the key-scheduler but, you would still need 2^100 encryptions which is impractical with current computational power. Increasing the number of rounds would fix the problem.

• ekon - Monday, June 11, 2012 - link

  There are problems with the full drive encryption for Intel's other SSDs well. I found the feature very appealing at first glance, but my pre-purchase research indicated it was extremely poorly documented and supported, with multiple deal-breaking limitations (e.g. may not work with the interface in AHCI mode, no guarantee you'll have a way to access the data on a different system due to fragmented support for ATA passwords, etc.).
  
  Unlike software such as TrueCrypt, it seems only a rare few attempt to use the FDE on SSDs, so the issues barely come to light. Here's one of the few discussions that delves into it:
  
  http://communities.intel.com/thread/20537

• bobbozzo - Monday, June 11, 2012 - link

  I've got a Kingston SSD with FDE, and their documentation doesn't explain how to move the drive to a different computer. Also it seems they've stopped selling FDE drives.
  
  Anyways, I called them, and the tech talked to an engineer or someone else who then explained how to turn off the encryption in the bios and move the drive, and turn it back on.
  
  No data was lost, but it makes me wonder where the encryption is happening if it can be disabled without re-writing the drive.
  Before buying it, I was originally told by Kingston marketing that changing the password would wipe the drive.

• Beenthere - Monday, June 11, 2012 - link

  Some like to harp (or believe) that Intel's products have better valadation than the competition and thus are more compatible/reliable but history continues to show this has simply not been the case in CPUs or SSDs.

• BSMonitor - Tuesday, June 12, 2012 - link

  Ummm, they do. This proves it. ALL SF-2281 have this AES-256 issue. Intel is just the first to find it and offer a refund for users who need that.
  
  EPIC FAIL on the Intel slam.

• etamin - Monday, June 11, 2012 - link

  So this bug is present in all sf-2281 devices? ...and only Intel is doing something about it?

• piroroadkill - Tuesday, June 12, 2012 - link

  I'm going to guess the bug is present in all of them, but Intel is doing something, yup.

• BSMonitor - Tuesday, June 12, 2012 - link

  Read the article. It is a SF-2281controller issue.

• ComputerNovice22 - Monday, June 11, 2012 - link

  To say that Intel isn't worth the extra cash over say a "cheaper brand" because they didn't catch this sooner...Is a bit silly to say the least, quite honestly I'd wonder why OCZ still hadn't found this issue or any of the other Sandforce sellers like Kingston,Corsair,Mushkin and others ... The other point I'd like to bring up is Intel was the only ones selling the Sandforce 2281 controllers that didn't suffer from random BSOD's issues so I'd beg to differ about Intel not being worth a little extra cash.