Microcontroller Exploits

Microcontroller Exploits is a deep dive into advanced hardware hacking with detailed examples of real-world techniques and a comprehensive survey of vulnerabilities. Microcontroller Exploits is a deep dive into advanced hardware hacking with detailed examples of real-world techniques and a comprehensive survey of vulnerabilities. In this advanced guide to hardware hacking, you'll learn how to read the software out of single chip computers, especially when they are configured not to allow the firmware to be extracted. This book documents a very wide variety of microchip hacking techniques; it's not a beginner's first introduction. You'll start off by exploring detailed techniques for hacking real-world chips, such as how the STM32F0 allows for one word to be dumped after every reset. You'll see how the STM32F1's exception handling can slowly leak the firmware out over an hour, and how the Texas Instruments MSP430 firmware can be extracted by a camera flash. For each exploit, you'll learn how to reproduce the results, dumping a chip in your own lab. In the second half of the book you'll find an encyclopedic survey of vulnerabilities, indexed and cross referenced for use in practicing hardware security.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Chapter 1: Basics of Memory Extraction Chapter 2: STM32F217 DFU Exit Chapter 3: MD380 Null Pointer, DFU Chapter 4: LPC1343 Call Stack Chapter 5: Ledger Nano S, 0xF00DBABE Chapter 6: NipPEr Is a buTt liCkeR Chapter 7: RF 430 Backdoors Chapter 8: Basics of JTAG and ICSP Chapter 9: nRF51 Gadgets in ROM Chapter 10: STM32F0 SWD Word Leak Chapter 11: STM32F1 Interrupt Jigsaw Chapter 12: PIC18F452 ICSP and HID Chapter 13: Basics of Glitching Chapter 14: MC13224, the Simplest Fault Injection Chapter 15: LPC1114 Bootloader Glitch Chapter 16: nRF52 APPROTECT Glitch Chapter 17: STM32 FPB Glitch Chapter 18: Chip Decapsulation Chapter 19: PIC Ultraviolet Unlock Chapter 20: MSP430 Paparazzi Attack Chapter 21: CMOS VLSI Interlude Chapter 22: Mask ROM Photography Chapter 23: Game Boy Via ROM Chapter 24: Clipper Chip Diffusion ROM Chapter 25: Nintendo CIC and Clones Chapter A: More Bootloader Vulns Chapter B: More Debugger Attacks Chapter C: More Privilege Escalation Chapter D: More Invasive Attacks Chapter E: More Fault Injections Chapter F: More Test Modes Chapter G: More ROM Photography Chapter H: Unsorted Attacks Chapter I: Other Chips Thank you, kindly. Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Travis Goodspeed is an embedded systems reverse engineer from Tennessee, where he drives a Studebaker and collects memory extraction exploits for microcontrollers. His recent projects include a function recognizer for Thumb2 firmware, a fresh memory corruption exploit for a 90's smart card, and a CAD tool for extracting bits from mask ROM photographs.

Review :
"This is both a fascinating and profoundly disturbing book. On the fascinating side, it is a cornucopia of great information . . . On the disturbing side, all that great and profoundly useful information is now gathered in one place and presented by a master." —Richard Austin, IEEE-Cipher (Read More) "Understanding the pitfalls of microcontroller security is hard, because there are many exquisite and obscure bits of knowledge that must all work together. Before this book, there was only one effective way to learn: talk to a master practitioner like Travis. This book gives a broad and deep survey of the craft, but most importantly it gets the many critical bits in one place, under one cover. I am sure it will become a foundation of many career-changing classes. One day I hope to get good enough to teach one!" —Sergey Bratus, Distinguished Professor in Cyber Security, Technology, and Society, Dartmouth College  "We don't have many books focused on such a topic, but face security problems tied to hardware and specifically to microcontrollers every day. Travis's book is foundational to understanding the security problems and how the attackers are going to exploit them. This book is a must-read for every product security team involved in device security." — Alex Matrosov, CEO and Founder of Binarly "The book presents an inspiring and much-anticipated collection of microcontroller security vulnerabilities and exploits - presented by Travis himself. All the examples serve as an excellent reference of attack vectors that had often been excluded as being "out-of-scope" and "nobody would do that" until proven otherwise. This book is very hands-on and a great read for everyone interested in hardware security. I dearly hope that this book will also find its audience amongst chip vendors and especially their teams designing the next generation security architectures." —Dr. Johannes Obermaier, security engineer and researcher