Embedded and IoT Security

Awesome Embedded and IoT Security ¶

A curated list of awesome resources about embedded and IoT security. The list contains software and hardware tools, books, research papers and more.

Botnets like Mirai have proven that there is a need for more security in embedded and IoT devices. This list shall help beginners and experts to find helpful resources on the topic.
If you are a beginner, you should have a look at the Books and Case Studies sections.
If you want to start right away with your own analysis, you should give the Analysis Frameworks a try. They are easy to use and you do not need to be an expert to get first meaningful results.

Items marked with are comercial products.

Software Tools¶

Software tools for analyzing embedded/IoT devices and firmware.

Analysis Frameworks¶

EXPLIoT - Pentest framework like Metasploit but specialized for IoT.
FACT - The Firmware Analysis and Comparison Tool - Full-featured static analysis framework including extraction of firmware, analysis utilizing different plug-ins and comparison of different firmware versions.
Improving your firmware security analysis process with FACT - Conference talk about FACT .
FwAnalyzer - Analyze security of firmware based on customized rules. Intended as additional step in DevSecOps, similar to CI.
HAL – The Hardware Analyzer - A comprehensive reverse engineering and manipulation framework for gate-level netlists.
HomePWN - Swiss Army Knife for Pentesting of IoT Devices.
IoTSecFuzz - Framework for automatisation of IoT layers security analysis: hardware, software and communication.
Killerbee - Framework for Testing & Auditing ZigBee and IEEE 802.15.4 Networks.
PRET - Printer Exploitation Toolkit.
Routersploit - Framework dedicated to exploit embedded devices.

Analysis Tools¶

Binwalk - Searches a binary for "interesting" stuff, as well as extracts arbitrary files.
cwe_checker - Finds vulnerable patterns in binary executables - ELF support for x86, ARM, and MIPS, experimental bare-metal support.
emba - Analyze Linux-based firmware of embedded devices.
Firmadyne - Tries to emulate and pentest a firmware.
Firmwalker - Searches extracted firmware images for interesting files and information.
Firmware Slap - Discovering vulnerabilities in firmware through concolic analysis and function clustering.
Ghidra - Software Reverse Engineering suite; handles arbitrary binaries, if you provide CPU architecture and endianness of the binary.
Radare2 - Software Reverse Engineering framework, also handles popular formats and arbitrary binaries, has an extensive command line toolset.
Trommel - Searches extracted firmware images for interesting files and information.

Extraction Tools¶

FACT Extractor - Detects container format automatically and executes the corresponding extraction tool.
Firmware Mod Kit - Extraction tools for several container formats.
The SRecord package - Collection of tools for manipulating EPROM files (can convert lots of binary formats).

Support Tools¶

JTAGenum - Add JTAG capabilities to an Arduino.
OpenOCD - Free and Open On-Chip Debugging, In-System Programming and Boundary-Scan Testing.

Misc Tools¶

Cotopaxi - Set of tools for security testing of Internet of Things devices using specific network IoT protocols.
dumpflash - Low-level NAND Flash dump and parsing utility.
flashrom - Tool for detecting, reading, writing, verifying and erasing flash chips.
Samsung Firmware Magic - Decrypt Samsung SSD firmware updates.

Hardware Tools¶

Bus Blaster - Detects and interacts with hardware debug ports like UART and JTAG.
Bus Pirate - Detects and interacts with hardware debug ports like UART and JTAG.
Shikra - Detects and interacts with hardware debug ports like UART and JTAG. Among other protocols.
JTAGULATOR - Detects JTAG Pinouts fast.
Saleae - Easy to use Logic Analyzer that support many protocols .
Ikalogic - Alternative to Saleae logic analyzers .
HydraBus - Open source multi-tool hardware similar to the BusPirate but with NFC capabilities.
ChipWhisperer - Detects Glitch/Side-channel attacks.
Glasgow - Tool for exploring and debugging different digital interfaces.
J-Link - J-Link offers USB powered JTAG debug probes for multiple different CPU cores .

Bluetooth BLE Tools¶

UberTooth One - Open source 2.4 GHz wireless development platform suitable for Bluetooth experimentation.
Bluefruit LE Sniffer - Easy to use Bluetooth Low Energy sniffer.

ZigBee Tools¶

ApiMote - ZigBee security research hardware for learning about and evaluating the security of IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee systems. Killerbee compatible.
Atmel RZUSBstick - Discontinued product. Lucky if you have one! - Tool for development, debugging and demonstration of a wide range of low power wireless applications including IEEE 802.15.4, 6LoWPAN, and ZigBee networks. Killerbee compatible.
Freakduino - Low Cost Battery Operated Wireless Arduino Board that can be turned into a IEEE 802.15.4 protocol sniffer.

SDR Tools¶

RTL-SDR - Cheapest SDR for beginners. It is a computer based radio scanner for receiving live radio signals frequencies from 500 kHz up to 1.75 GHz.
HackRF One - Software Defined Radio peripheral capable of transmission or reception of radio signals from 1 MHz to 6 GHz (half-duplex).
YardStick One - Half-duplex sub-1 GHz wireless transceiver.
LimeSDR - Software Defined Radio peripheral capable of transmission or reception of radio signals from 100 KHz to 3.8 GHz (full-duplex).
BladeRF 2.0 - Software Defined Radio peripheral capable of transmission or reception of radio signals from 47 MHz to 6 GHz (full-duplex).
USRP B Series - Software Defined Radio peripheral capable of transmission or reception of radio signals from 70 MHz to 6 GHz (full-duplex).

RFID NFC Tools¶

Proxmark 3 RDV4 - Powerful general purpose RFID tool. From Low Frequency (125kHz) to High Frequency (13.56MHz) tags.
ChamaleonMini - Programmable, portable tool for NFC security analysis.
HydraNFC - Powerful 13.56MHz RFID / NFC platform. Read / write / crack / sniff / emulate.

Books¶

2020, Fotios Chantzis, Evangel Deirme, Ioannis Stais, Paulino Calderon, Beau Woods: Practical IoT Hacking
2020, Jasper van Woudenberg, Colin O'Flynn: The Hardware Hacking Handbook: Breaking Embedded Security with Hardware Attacks
2019, Yago Hansen: The Hacker's Hardware Toolkit: The best collection of hardware gadgets for Red Team hackers, Pentesters and security researchers
2019, Aditya Gupta: The IoT Hacker's Handbook: A Practical Guide to Hacking the Internet of Things
2018, Mark Swarup Tehranipoor: Hardware Security: A Hands-on Learning Approach
2018, Mark Carney: Pentesting Hardware - A Practical Handbook (DRAFT)
2018, Qing Yang, Lin Huang Inside Radio: An Attack and Defense Guide
2017, Aditya Gupta, Aaron Guzman: IoT Penetration Testing Cookbook
2017, Andrew Huang: The Hardware Hacker: Adventures in Making and Breaking Hardware
2016, Craig Smith: The Car Hacker's Handbook: A Guide for the Penetration Tester
2015, Keng Tiong Ng: The Art of PCB Reverse Engineering
2015, Nitesh Dhanjan: Abusing the Internet of Things: Blackouts, Freakouts, and Stakeouts
2015, Joshua Wright , Johnny Cache: Hacking Wireless Exposed
2014, Debdeep Mukhopadhyay: Hardware Security: Design, Threats, and Safeguards
2014, Jack Ganssle: The Firmware Handbook (Embedded Technology)
2013, Andrew Huang: Hacking the XBOX

Research Papers¶

2020, Oser et al: SAFER: Development and Evaluation of an IoT Device Risk Assessment Framework in a Multinational Organization
2019, Agarwal et al: Detecting IoT Devices and How They Put Large Heterogeneous Networks at Security Risk
2019, Almakhdhub et al: BenchIoT: A Security Benchmark for the Internet of Things
2019, Alrawi et al: SoK: Security Evaluation of Home-Based IoT Deployments
2019, Abbasi et al: Challenges in Designing Exploit Mitigations for Deeply Embedded Systems
2019, Song et al: PeriScope: An Effective Probing and Fuzzing Framework for the Hardware-OS Boundary
2018, Muench et al: What You Corrupt Is Not What You Crash: Challenges in Fuzzing Embedded Devices
2017, O'Meara et al: Embedded Device Vulnerability Analysis Case Study Using Trommel
2017, Jacob et al: How to Break Secure Boot on FPGA SoCs through Malicious Hardware
2017, Costin et al: Towards Automated Classification of Firmware Images and Identification of Embedded Devices
2016, Kammerstetter et al: Embedded Security Testing with Peripheral Device Caching and Runtime Program State Approximation
2016, Chen et al: Towards Automated Dynamic Analysis for Linux-based Embedded Firmware
2016, Costin et al: Automated Dynamic Firmware Analysis at Scale: A Case Study on Embedded Web Interfaces
2015, Shoshitaishvili et al:Firmalice - Automatic Detection of Authentication Bypass Vulnerabilities in Binary Firmware
2015, Papp et al: Embedded Systems Security: Threats, Vulnerabilities, and Attack Taxonomy
2014, Zaddach et al: Avatar: A Framework to Support Dynamic Security Analysis of Embedded Systems' Firmwares
2014, Alimi et al: Analysis of embedded applications by evolutionary fuzzing
2014, Costin et al: A Large-Scale Analysis of the Security of Embedded Firmwares
2013, Davidson et al: FIE on Firmware: Finding Vulnerabilities in Embedded Systems using Symbolic Execution

Case Studies¶

Binary Hardening in IoT products
Cracking Linksys “Encryption”
Deadly Sins Of Development - Conference talk presenting several real world examples on real bad implementations .
Dumping firmware from a device's SPI flash with a buspirate
Hacking the DSP-W215, Again
Hacking the PS4 - Introduction to PS4's security.
IoT Security@CERN
Multiple vulnerabilities found in the D-link DWR-932B
Pwning the Dlink 850L routers and abusing the MyDlink Cloud protocol
PWN Xerox Printers (...again)
Reversing Firmware With Radare
Reversing the Huawei HG533

Free Training¶

CSAW Embedded Security Challenge 2019 - CSAW 2019 Embedded Security Challenge (ESC).
Embedded Security CTF - Microcorruption: Embedded Security CTF.
Hardware Hacking 101 - Workshop @ BSides Munich 2019.
IoTGoat - IoTGoat is a deliberately insecure firmware based on OpenWrt.
Rhme-2015 - First riscure Hack me hardware CTF challenge.
Rhme-2016 - Riscure Hack me 2 is a low level hardware CTF challenge.
Rhme-2017/2018 - Riscure Hack Me 3 embedded hardware CTF 2017-2018.

Websites¶

Hacking Printers Wiki - All things printer.
OWASP Embedded Application Security Project - Development best practices and list of hardware and software tools.
OWASP Internet of Things Project - IoT common vulnerabilities and attack surfaces.
Router Passwords - Default login credential database sorted by manufacturer.
Siliconpr0n - A Wiki/Archive of all things IC reversing.

Blogs¶

Tutorials and Technical Background¶

Azeria Lab - Miscellaneous ARM related Tutorials.
JTAG Explained - A walkthrough covering UART and JTAG bypassing a protected login shell.
Reverse Engineering Serial Ports - Detailed tutorial about how to spot debug pads on a PCB.
UART explained - An in depth explanation of the UART protocol.

YouTube Channels¶

Flashback Team - A duo of hackers explaining their step by step approach to finding and exploiting vulnerabilities in embedded devices.
StackSmashing - Reverse engineering and hardware hacking of embedded devices.

Conferences¶

Conferences focused on embedded and/or IoT security.

Hardwear.io
EU, The Hague, September.
USA, Santa Clara, June.

Contribute¶

Contributions welcome! Read the contribution guidelines first.

License¶

To the extent possible under law, Fraunhofer FKIE has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.