Fact or Fiction?

On the show, 24, somebody mentioned a "poison pill firewall." Does
anybody know if such a firewall actually exists or is it made up for
the show?

Ron

 

I am pretty sure its fake, but perhaps if you give us more info about
what it does, maybe it just has a different name in the real world

 

TV? It must be true.

Just out of (minimal) curiosity, what was it supposed to do?

Notan

 

Maybe if you Google for Honeypot you get the picture ?

 

As the story went, this terrorist set up his system with a firewall
that if breached a certain number of times, then all data on his hard
drive(s) would be erased on the theory that the only people likely to
attempt hacking his system would be US Government and that his plans
and data would be better off destroyed than in any way be captured.

I know for most people that arrangement is more than a little harsh,
but I was wondering just from a security standpoint, if such a "poison
pill" firewall could be implemented if somebody did have information
that they absolutely *needed* to keep secret and out of the hands of
anyone else. Say corporate data, or for financial records you don't
want your wife's divorce lawyers to get access to. <g>

Ron

 

firewall called 'phoenix' ::= if it detects a breach it wipes out all
the working data ! Gives 'b ackup ' a whole new perspective!!

 

it is possible sort of, except it wouldnt really be the firewall doing
this, the firewall merely says yes or no to outbound and inbound
traffic based on rules, you could create a script to wipe the harddrive
after x many attempts on certian port or what not, now this is not
pratical as there are so many random scans out there you would always
be wipping your harddrive. You could set it up to wipe the harddrive
after x failed login attempts with ssh, but once again silly because
the system was never really compermised, it would make more sense to
set up an IDS would would detect an intrustion. so to answer your
question, sure its completely possible, not very practical

 

Ron schreef:

I do not have it on my firewalls, but I do have it on my PDA.
Too many times a wrong password, and *poof*...

For corporate data on servers one feasible way would be imho to have
this data encrypted already, and remove eg. keystores/rings/HSM-keys
when the firewall says so.

John

 

Just another great example of how firewall security leads to
insecurity.

With this firewall an attacker can not only compromise my system, but
also erase all my working data by simply convincing my firewall it is
breached? Great! I can't wait until Microsoft enables this on all
shipping versions of Windows.

Obviously this is way too sensible for USENET, but if the firewall can
detect a breach, wouldn't a better response be to close the breach
rather than start the several hours of secure wiping required for even
a
reasonable sized drive?

Anyway the wipe would still be running and your information just as
compromised for up to 24 hours after such a detection/response.

Of course, anyone who would run such a firewall wouldn't relize that
just deleting files doesn't remove the data. They are less secure,
and
confident they are protected at the same time. Firewall = nice
marketing ploy.

To the orig poster, what possible benefit does such a terrorist have
in
putting his machine on the Internet? Wouldn't he just host his evil
plans from the net cafe while his data archive is secure at home in
the
Faraday cage?

-s

 

Not a firewall - but self-destructing hard drives without the need for
random wipes DOES exist, though very expensive. It is called, "Dead On
Demand" and can be destroyed by various methods instantly (including
remotely). The best example would be Ensconce Data Technology:
http://www.ensconcedata.com The technology uses a small vial of
corrosive acid that completely destroys the drive platter - without
damage to the rest of the computer. It's pretty "James Bond" like stuff
and you pay dearly for it.

 

Oh wait. They had some explosives attached to the hard disk. It will
detonate to wipe your data.

 

His system wasn't on the Internet but on a private network. But for the
most part, the story was written more towards suspense and drama, than
for accuracy so I wouldn't expect too much logic behind it.

Ron

 

If your dealing with that type of information, it's a small price to
pay to ensure it doesn't leave that drive

 

ther are some firewalls purchasable but not at the level it says on 24... the kinda firewall it mentions kills all accessable data on your computer to stop ppl from seein it... gfi is a good system to use if you want somethin like that but u can lose some data if it happens