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Photon-Emission-Guided Laser Fault Injection Enables RP2350 Secure Debug

70 pointsby 2h agodonjon.ledger.com
17 comments
1h agoHN ↗

The attack requires physical access, destructive preparation, and approximately $250,000 of laboratory equipment.

Not super practical, but neat attack

1h agoHN ↗

$250,000 of laboratory equipment

*currently

16m agoHN ↗

In 5 years, either $400,000 or $50 and a hammer, depending on whether the core piece of the process aligns with the needs of some fast-growing consumer tech product like e.g. drones.

1h agoHN ↗

Some people have such and other toys just at work and can use it in spare time.

1h agoHN ↗

250k is not a bad investment for a company doing "reverse engineering as a service" - say 1k a pop to extract the firmware. Naturally, a good business idea for somewhere in the world with less regulations...

42m agoHN ↗

That is peanuts for a nation-state actor.

26m agoHN ↗

Sure, but if you’re defending against a nation state actor hopefully you aren’t expecting a raspberry pi to keep you secure.

13m agoHN ↗

The RP2350 is an inexpensive microcontroller IC with reasonable performance and some very useful (and somewhat unusual) features in its PIO blocks.

Why wouldn't a person build that into the heart of something important?

10m agoHN ↗

"Important" and "tamper proof against a determined adversary" are very different goals.

38m agoHN ↗

It reads as impressive defense. Meaning that it's presumably not possible to get root with physical access on a live 50$ device without 250k capital

1h agoHN ↗

It needs to be updated. Modern evil planners don't even need a wrench since they already have most keys given to them in advance by everyone, including nerds

1h agoHN ↗

That's reminiscent of when we first found out that if you opened up dram chips you could use them for imaging. Of course the scale at which this is done is extremely impressive.

38m agoHN ↗

Now it can be done for Apple iPhone. Apple is cooked.