Hardware “Security” And A DMCA Takedown Notice

August 5, 2014 by Mike Szczys 305 Comments

tektronix-auto Last week we published a post about how it was discovered through trial and error that Tektronix application modules are designed with laughable security. We’ll get to that part of it in a minute. We received a DMCA Takedown Notice from Tektronix (which you can read after the break) demanding that we remove the post. We have altered the original post, but we believe our coverage of this story is valid and we don’t agree that the post should be completely removed.

First off, Tektronix sells the modules to unlock the features already present on the Oscilloscope in questions. We’re operating on the moral assumption that using these features without paying their asking price is wrong. If you want the features they’ve developed you should pay for them.

The real story here is that Tektronix designed a woefully weak system for unlocking these modules. Learn from this. If you’re ever designing a hardware key, don’t do it like this!

An EEPROM, a connector, and a plain text string of characters which is already published publicly on their website is all that is necessary to unlock these “crippled” features. Let’s just say that again: apparently every hardware key is the same and just uses a plain-text string found on their website which is not encrypted or obfuscated. If you were selling these keys for $2.99 perhaps this would be adequate, but Tek values these modules at $500 apiece.

If you were designing this system wouldn’t it be worth using an encryption key pair based on the serial number or some other piece of unique information? How do you think this should have been done? Leave your comment below.

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Building The NSA’s Tools

August 1, 2014 by Eric Evenchick 8 Comments

Back in 2013, the NSA ANT Catalog was leaked. This document contained a list of devices that are available to the NSA to carry out surveillance.

[Michael Ossmann] took a look at this, and realized that a lot of their tools were similar to devices the open source hardware community had built. Based on that, he gave a talk on The NSA Playset at Toorcamp 2014. This covered how one might implement these devices using open hardware.

The above image is a parody of an ANT Catalog page, which shows [Michael]’s HackRF, an open source software defined radio. In the talk, [Michael] and [Dean Pierce] go over the ANT Catalog devices one by one, discussing the hardware that would be needed to build your own.

Some of these tools already have open source counterparts. The NIGHTSTAND WiFi exploitation tools is essentially a WiFi Pineapple. SPARROW II is more or less a device running Kismet attached to a drone, which we’ve seen before.

A video of the Toorcamp talk is available on [Michael]’s blog. There will also be a variety of talks on this subject at DEFCON next week, which we’re looking forward to. For further reading, Wikipedia has a great summary of the ANT Catalog.

HOPE X: Wireless Tor Proxies And Sharing TrueCrypt Volumes

July 23, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 16 Comments

When you’re at HOPE, of course you’re going to see a few Tor proxies, but [Jose]’s is top-notch. It’s a completely portable Tor proxy (.br, Google translation), battery-powered, with a connection for 4G networks.

[Jose]’s OnionPi setup is based on the Adafruit version, but adds a few interesting features that make it even more useful. It’s battery-powered with about a day of charge time, has a built-in battery charger, Ethernet pass through, external 4G and WiFi antennas, all in a sealed case that makes the entire build impervious to the elements.

While this isn’t much of a hack per se, the amount of integration is impressive. There are switches to turn off each individual networking port, and all the relevant plugs are broken out to the front panel, with the AC input and USB serial connection using screw connectors that are supposedly very popular in Brazil.

[Jose] also brought along a new device that isn’t documented anywhere else on the web. It’s called NNCFA, or Nothing New Crypto For All. Using a Cubieboard, an interesting ARM single board computer with a SATA connector, [Jose] created a device that will mount TrueCrypt volumes on a hard drive and share them via Samba.

The CryptoCape For BeagleBone

July 20, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 14 Comments

[Josh Datko] was wandering around HOPE X showing off some of his wares and was kind enough to show off his CryptoCape to us. It’s an add on board for the BeagleBone that breaks out some common crypto hardware to an easily interfaced package.

On board the CryptoCape is an Atmel Trusted Platform Module, an elliptic curve chip, a SHA-256 authenticator, an encrypted EEPROM, a real time clock, and an ATMega328p for interfacing to other components and modules on the huge prototyping area on the cape.

[Josh] built the CryptoCape in cooperation with Sparkfun, so if you’re not encumbered with a bunch of export restrictions, you can pick one up there. Pic of the board below.

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How To: Hack Your Way Into Your Own Gated Community

July 14, 2014 by Rich Bremer 39 Comments

RF Signal Decryption and Emulation

Does your Gated Community make you feel secure due to the remote-controlled gate keeping the riffraff out? Residents of such Gated Communities in Poland are now shaking in fear since [Tomasz] has hacked into his own neighborhood by emulating the signal that opens the entrance gate. Shockingly, this only took about 4 hours from start to finish and only about $20 in parts.

Most of these type of systems use RF communication and [Tomasz’s] is no difference. The first step was to record the signal sent out by his remote. A USB Software Defined Radio transmitter/receiver coupled with a program called SDR# read and recorded the signal without a hitch. [Tomasz] was expecting a serialized communication but after recording and analyzing the signal from several people entering the community it became clear that there was only one code transmitted by everyone’s remote.

Now that he knows the code, [Tomasz] has to figure out a way to send that signal to the receiver. He has done this by making an RF transmitter from just a handful of parts, the meat and potatoes being a Colpitts oscillator and a power amplifier. This simple transmitter is connected to a DISCOVERY board that is responsible for the modulation tasks. [Tomasz] was nice enough to make his code available on his site for anyone that is interested in stopping by for a visit.

Homebrew NSA Bugs

July 10, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 56 Comments

NSA

Thanks to [Edward Snowden] we have a huge, publicly available catalog of the very, very interesting electronic eavesdropping tools the NSA uses. Everything from incredibly complex ARM/FPGA/Flash modules smaller than a penny to machines that can install backdoors in Windows systems from a distance of eight miles are available to the nation’s spooks, and now, the sufficiently equipped electronic hobbyist can build their own.

[GBPPR2] has been going through the NSA’s ANT catalog in recent months, building some of the simpler radio-based bugs. The bug linked to above goes by the codename LOUDAUTO, and it’s a relatively simple (and cheap) radar retro-reflector that allows anyone with the hardware to illuminate a simple circuit to get audio back.

Also on [GBPPR2]’s build list is RAGEMASTER, a device that fits inside a VGA cable and allows a single VGA color channel to be viewed remotely.

The basic principle behind both of these bugs is retroreflection, described by the NSA as a PHOTOANGLO device. The basic principle behind these devices is a FET in the bug, with an antenna connected to the drain. The PHOTOANGLO illuminates this antenna and the PWM signal sent to the gate of the FET modulates the returned signal. A bit of software defined radio on the receiving end, and you have your very own personal security administration.

It’s all very cool stuff, but there are some entries in the NSA catalog that don’t deal with radio at all. One device, IRATEMONK, installs a backdoor in hard drive controller chips. Interestingly, Hackaday favorite and current Hackaday Prize judge [Sprite_TM] did something extremely similar, only without, you know, being really sketchy about it.

While we don’t like the idea of anyone actually using these devices, the NSA ANT catalog is still fertile ground for project ideas.

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Stealing WiFi From LED Lightbulbs

July 6, 2014 by Eric Evenchick 13 Comments

Back in 2012, the LIFX light bulb launched on Kickstarter, and was quite successful. This wireless LED lightbulb uses a combination of WiFi and 6LoWPAN to create a network of lightbulbs within your house. Context Information Security took a look into these devices, and found some security issues.

The LIFX system has a master bulb. This is the only bulb which connects to WiFi, and it sends all commands out to the remaining bulbs over 6LoWPAN. To keep the network up, any bulb can become a master if required. This means the WiFi credentials need to be shared between all the bulbs.

Looking into the protocol, an encrypted binary blob containing WiFi credentials was found. This binary could easily be recovered using an AVR Raven evaluation kit, but was not readable since it was encrypted.

After cracking a bulb apart, they found JTAG headers on the main board. A BusBlaster and OpenOCD were used to communicate with the chip. This allowed the firmware to be dumped.

Using IDA Pro, they determined that AES was being used to encrypt the WiFi credentials. With a bit more work, the key and initialization vector was extracted. With this information, WiFi credentials sent over the air could be decrypted.

The good news is that LIFX fixed this issue. Now they generate an encryption key based on WiFi credentials, preventing a globally unique key from being used.

[via reddit]