Re:Kids find a security flaw in Linux Mint by mashing keys
by globular-toast on Wednesday January 20, 2021 @09:29AM
(#25846802)
Yes, really. I don't use Windows myself, but I've seen it happen to others. As another commenter said, it's usually when the computer is coming out of "sleep" or something like that. Plenty of times I've seen a glimpse of the desktop that was long enough for me to get a vague idea of what they were doing before the lock screen takes over. If one was determined enough a photograph could easily be taken in that time.
Re:Kids find a security flaw in Linux Mint by mashing keys
by robocat on Wednesday January 20, 2021 @05:01PM
(#25852578)
My guess would be that the video buffer wasn’t cleared before suspending. If so, on resuming there is a race condition between painting the lock screen, and turning on the video hardware that will show the screen memory as it was when suspended.
Re:Kids find a security flaw in Linux Mint by mashing keys
by AnIdiotOnTheNet on Wednesday January 20, 2021 @11:20AM
(#25848229)
Huh, interesting. Probably explains why I haven't ever seen it: I never use sleep.
Really? I have never seen this in Windows. Don't get me wrong, I've seen plenty of lock screen failures in Windows, usually in the form of it suddenly being unresponsive, just never anything that actually gave me access to the locked session again.
The closest I've seen is when using RDP, if the Window has been minimized or hidden or otherwise has had reason not to update its display, then locked due to timeout, it will briefly show the last image it rendered when reactivated before updating and showing the lock screen.
P.S.: As other users have pointed out, Windows does have some known lock screen bypasses using accessibility and help dialogs, but in regards to merely crashing the lock screen, I haven't seen it behave in an insecure way.