Bits to Binary to Bootloader to Glitch: Exploiting ROM for Non-invasive Attacks
In this paper, we explore how ROM can be leveraged to perform a non-invasive attack (i.e., voltage glitching) by a relatively unsophisticated actor without a six-figure budget. We begin by explaining what ROM is, why it is used, and how it can be extracted. What exactly is ROM? Put simply, Read-Only Memory (ROM) is a type of Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) that is constructed as physical structures within chips. The structures are patterned as ones and zeroes on one, and only one, of several layers of the chip. Why just…
Lessons Learned and S.A.F.E. Facts Shared During Lisbon’s OCP Regional Summit
I don’t recall precisely what year the change happened, but at some point, the public cloud became critical infrastructure with corresponding high national security stakes. That reality brought rapid maturity and accompanying regulatory controls for securing and protecting the infrastructure and services of cloud service providers (CSPs). Next week at the 2024 OCP Regional Summit in Lisbon, teams will be sharing new security success stories and diving deeper into the technical elements and latest learnings in securing current generation cloud infrastructure devices. IOActive will be present throughout the event,…
Accessory Authentication – part 3/3
This is Part 3 of a 3-Part series. You can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here. Introduction In this post, we continue our deep dive comparison of the security processors used on a consumer product and an unlicensed clone. Our focus here will be identifying and characterizing memory arrays. Given a suitably deprocessed sample, memories can often be recognized as such under low magnification because of their smooth, regular appearance with distinct row/address decode logic on the perimeter, as compared to analog circuitry (which contains many…
Accessory Authentication – part 2/3
This is Part 2 of a 3-Part series. You can find Part 1 here. Introduction In this post, we continue our deep dive comparison of the security processors used on a consumer product and an unlicensed clone. Our focus here will be comparing manufacturing process technology. We already know the sizes of both dies, so given the gate density (which can be roughly estimated from the technology node or measured directly by locating and measuring a 2-input NAND gate) it’s possible to get a rough estimate for gate count….
Accessory Authentication – Part 1/3
Introduction Manufacturers of consumer electronics often use embedded security processors to authenticate peripherals, accessories, and consumables. Third parties wishing to build unlicensed products (clones) within such an ecosystem must defeat or bypass this security for their products to function correctly. In this series, the IOActive silicon lab team will take you on a deep dive into one such product, examining both the OEM product and the clone in detail. Fundamentally, the goal of a third party selling an unlicensed product is for the host system to recognize their product as…
Hack the Sky: Adventures in Drone Security | Gabriel Gonzalez
Taking aim at the attack surface of these buzzy devices uncovers real-world risks In the grand theater of innovation, drones have their spot in the conversation near the top of a short list of real game changers, captivating multiple industries with their potential. From advanced military applications to futuristic automated delivery systems, from agricultural management to oil and gas exploration and beyond, drones appear to be here to stay. If so, it’s time we start thinking about the security of these complex pieces of airborne technology. The Imperative Around Drone…
IOActive Presents at HARRIS 2024, a Unique Workshop for Chip Reverse Engineering | Tony Moor
The Hardware Reverse Engineering Workshop (HARRIS) is the first ever annual workshop devoted solely to chip reverse engineering, and 2024 was its second year. IOActive has been present both years, and this year I attended to see what all the fuss was about. Background The workshop is organized by the Embedded Security group of the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy (MPI-SP) together with Cyber Security in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries (CASA) and
Opinion: AGI Influencing the Secure Code Review Profession
It’s tough to be a secure code reviewer. There are already over 700 programming languages according to Wikipedia, and seemingly more languages materializing every year. Expectations are high that rapid developments in Artificial Generative Intelligence (AGI) will bring a new suite of languages and security issues that’ll have an oversized impact on software development. Consequently, secure software development lifecycle (SDL) processes and security code review are having to evolve rapidly. I’m both excited and nervous about AGI advancements in the world of software development and secure…
Exploring AMD Platform Secure Boot | IOActive Labs Blog | Krzysztof Okupski
Krzysztof Okupski, IOActive Associate Principal Security Consultant, has posted a blog in the continuing research into platform security. In a previous IOActive Research post on platform security (see ‘Back to the Future with Platform Security’), we provided a brief introduction into platform security protections on AMD-based platforms and touched upon the topic of AMD Platform Secure Boot (PSB). In this installment of the platform security blog series, we will dig deeper into the details of PSB, including a first glimpse of how it works under the hood,…
Owning a Bitcoin ATM | IOActive Labs Blog | Gabriel Gonzalez, Antonio Requena, Sergio Ruiz
In this IOActive Labs blog, Gabriel Gonzalez, Antonio Requena and Sergio Ruiz, of IOActive Research, explains the steps they followed to identify a series of vulnerabilities (CVE-2024-0175, CVE-2024-0176 and CVE-2024-0177) that allows full control over Bitcoin ATMs. Nowadays, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies might look less popular than they did just a few years ago. However, it is still quite common to find Bitcoin ATMs in numerous locations. IOActive had access to few of these machines, specifically to Lamassu’s Douro ATM. This provided the team with the opportunity…