cubalo

An emergency LUKS self-destruct functionality was recently added to Kali v1.0.6. The way this works is by setting two unique decryption passwords; one password will decrypt the data on the drive and allow for normal use and the other password will “destroy” the data on the drive. It is fairly easy to configure and a lot of people are excited about it. More information on the feature can be found on the Kali website.

However, I’m a bit skeptical about this. The way I look at it, this will stop only the laziest and least skilled individuals. Think about it this way, if I were to seriously seize/steal/inspect a laptop with this feature, the first thing I would do is make a copy of the drive. If you provided me the nuke password, I’d say that it didn’t work and revert to the initial image and start again.

More aggressively, if the owner is abducted or the laptop is seized, I see two outcomes:

• The owner gives the criminal the nuke password, destroys the data, and is subsequently beaten/killed.
• The owner gives an LEO the nuke password, destroys the data, and catches an obstruction of justice charge (federally punishable up to 20 years).

So what threat is this really protecting against?