Yashin Mehaboobe

Workshop Title

Hardware Reverse Engineering: From Boot to Root

Abstract

Ever wondered what the heck is going on with that embedded device in your household? Is it phoning back to its makers? Are there any backdoors bundled with your device?

Unlike software hardware doesn't lend itself very easily to reversing. Many software reversers are initially confused due to unfamiliarity. This talk will take you through common hardware reverse engineering techniques and practices.

Topics discussed will include physical disassembly techniques, radio transmission reverse engineering, firmware reversing and flash memory dumping. Also discussed will be tools used in the trade as well as techniques for recognizing and exploiting debug ports.

A few routers will be reversed on stage to demonstrate the techniques. The last section of the talk will be on how embedded reverse engineering had discovered various vulnerabilities in routers and other devices.