Hardware Podcasts

Ep077: Secret Life of SD Cards, Mining Minecraft's Secret Seed, BadPower is Bad, and a Sea of Neon

Hackaday Podcast · 23 Jul 2020 · 53m

What this episode covers

Hackaday editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams discuss several hardware hacks, including Jason Jin's discovery of hidden test pads on SD cards to identify internal flash memory, and a 2016 hack that bypassed an SD card's microcontroller by wiring directly to these pads. They also cover a 'BadPower' vulnerability in USB fast chargers where rewritable firmware could force incorrect voltages, and the successful brute-forcing of the secret seed for Minecraft's title screen background using distributed computing.

Most relevant to

makers and hobbyists

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Samsung, Sandisk
Products
Minecraft
Also
Folding@Home, CNC Kitchen, Pierre Muth, Christina Panos

Related episodes from other shows

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • The Amp Hour · 1h 21m

    An Interview with Dmitry Nedospasov

    Dmitry Nedospasov, a hardware security researcher and founder of the startup Toothless, discusses his work in IC security and reverse engineering. He details invasive and semi-invasive techniques for analyzing chips, including using focused ion beams and infrared cameras to extract secrets from smart cards and pay TV systems. Nedospasov also explains his training curriculum at the RECon conference, which teaches engineers how to use FPGAs for protocol analysis and hardware hacking.

    Debugging & failure analysisMicrocontrollers & dev platforms
    7 chapters

  • Embedded.fm · 1h 00m

    286: Twenty Cans of Gas

    Colin O'Flynn, CTO of NewAE Technology and an assistant professor at Dalhousie University, explains how his ChipWhisperer platform enables side-channel power analysis and fault injection attacks to recover encryption keys from embedded devices. He details the mechanics of differential power analysis, noting that power consumption correlates with data bus activity, allowing attackers to iteratively recover secret keys from algorithms like AES. O'Flynn discusses the ethical implications of open-source security tools, arguing that making these attacks accessible helps designers implement better countermeasures like masking and key rotation before products reach the market. He also covers his work with FPGAs for precise timing control in attacks and his hiring needs for embedded security experts at his company.

    Security & privacyEmbedded firmware
    7 chapters

  • Unnamed Reverse Engineering Podcast · 1h 15m

    038 - My Favorite Random Number is 5

    Colin O'Flynn, founder of NewAE Technology, explains how differential power analysis (DPA) and fault injection allow attackers to recover cryptographic keys from embedded devices by measuring minute power variations or disrupting clock/voltage signals. He details the mechanics of side-channel attacks, the importance of random number generation, and the limitations of 'military grade' encryption claims. O'Flynn also discusses his open-source tool ChipWhisperer, electromagnetic fault injection hardware like BADFET, and the broader industry challenges in securing IoT devices against such physical attacks.

    Debugging & failure analysisSecurity & privacy
    6 chapters

  • Embedded.fm · 1h 00m

    286: Twenty Cans of Gas (Repeat)

    Colin O'Flynn, CTO of NewAE Technology and an assistant professor, discusses his company's ChipWhisperer platform, which enables side-channel power analysis and fault injection attacks on embedded devices. He explains how differential power analysis recovers encryption keys by correlating power consumption with data bus activity, noting that while the technique is decades old, many IoT devices remain vulnerable. O'Flynn also covers FPGA design for precise timing, software countermeasures like masking, and the ethical implications of making security research tools accessible to both defenders and attackers.

    Security & privacyMicrocontrollers & dev platforms
    7 chapters

  • The Amp Hour · 1h 06m

    An Interview with Joe FitzPatrick

    Joe Fitzpatrick of SecurityHardware.com, a former CPU silicon security tester, explains how hardware vulnerabilities arise from Verilog assumptions and undocumented register behaviors, leading to his current focus on hardware security training. He details the evolution of attacks from simple JTAG access to sophisticated USB-C exploits involving microcontrollers in adapters, and discusses the NSA Playset's Slot Screamer device. Fitzpatrick argues that physical access often bypasses software security, highlighting the risks of unverified hardware like YubiKey clones and the ethical dilemmas of vulnerability disclosure in IoT and medical devices.

    Security & privacyEmbedded firmware
    8 chapters

The summary, chapters and topics are generated from the episode’s audio by this directory, not written by Hackaday Podcast. The episode itself belongs to its publisher.