Direct Memory Access Vulnerabilities with Sami Laiho
DMA vulnerabilities have been around for ten years - are your machines in danger? Richard talks to Sami Laiho about his experiences trying to close the exploit that is Direct Memory Access. This technology for rapid data transfer has been available for years with FireWire and Thunderbolt, and now exists in USB 3.1 as well. The problem is that it has been two-way memory access, so connecting two machines together via FireWire can allow the attacking machine to steal any memory it wants, like your BitLocker encryption key. Only in Windows 10 are we starting to see protection in place, and there's more to come. Scary stuff!
Episode 529 of the RunAs Radio podcast, hosted by Richard Campbell, titled "Direct Memory Access Vulnerabilities with Sami Laiho" was published on April 26, 2017 and runs 28 minutes.
April 26, 2017 ·28m · RunAs Radio
Summary
DMA vulnerabilities have been around for ten years - are your machines in danger? Richard talks to Sami Laiho about his experiences trying to close the exploit that is Direct Memory Access. This technology for rapid data transfer has been available for years with FireWire and Thunderbolt, and now exists in USB 3.1 as well. The problem is that it has been two-way memory access, so connecting two machines together via FireWire can allow the attacking machine to steal any memory it wants, like your BitLocker encryption key. Only in Windows 10 are we starting to see protection in place, and there's more to come. Scary stuff!
Episode Description
DMA vulnerabilities have been around for ten years - are your machines in danger? Richard talks to Sami Laiho about his experiences trying to close the exploit that is Direct Memory Access. This technology for rapid data transfer has been available for years with FireWire and Thunderbolt, and now exists in USB 3.1 as well. The problem is that it has been two-way memory access, so connecting two machines together via FireWire can allow the attacking machine to steal any memory it wants, like your BitLocker encryption key. Only in Windows 10 are we starting to see protection in place, and there's more to come. Scary stuff!
Similar Episodes
Apr 9, 2026 ·101m
Apr 8, 2026 ·21m
Apr 7, 2026 ·52m
Mar 27, 2026 ·80m