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Embedded Security: Tales From The Front Lines

George Hotz is a hacker with no formal education who is known for jailbreaking various devices including phones. The document discusses embedded device security and how Hotz was able to hack into devices like the Nokia 1661 phone and original PlayStation 3 by finding flaws in their security mechanisms. It describes exploits he developed that allowed him to gain code execution, dump firmware, and break carrier locks on devices. The PS3 was notable as the only unhacked 7th generation console at the time until Hotz was able to find a way in by violating assumptions made in the system's coding.

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Pooja Agrawal
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53 views

Embedded Security: Tales From The Front Lines

George Hotz is a hacker with no formal education who is known for jailbreaking various devices including phones. The document discusses embedded device security and how Hotz was able to hack into devices like the Nokia 1661 phone and original PlayStation 3 by finding flaws in their security mechanisms. It describes exploits he developed that allowed him to gain code execution, dump firmware, and break carrier locks on devices. The PS3 was notable as the only unhacked 7th generation console at the time until Hotz was able to find a way in by violating assumptions made in the system's coding.

Uploaded by

Pooja Agrawal
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Embedded Security

Tales from the front lines


About Me

• George Hotz(geohot)
• No formal education
• 2007
• Make it ra1n?
Ethics/Legality
• Jailbreak
• “Hacker”
• I paid for it, it’s mine
• DMCA applies?
• Whole system is access-control?
• If true, thats just wrong
• “effective measures”
A Quick Primer on
“Embedded” Security
“Embedded”?
• Phones
• Video Game consoles
• Routers
• Car ECUs
• iPads
• SIM cards
• Not “Computers”
Security from the
hardware
• Boot chain
• Secure BootROM
• ROM is ROM
• Signatures
• Root cert in the hardware
Breaking It

• Startup/Run(2 exploits)
• Exploits
• Buffer overflows(stack and heap)
• Failure to check
How a simple math
problem cost me a 6
figure job
Nokia 1661

• GSM Phone -- $20


• Subsidized by T-Mobile
• Big endian ARM ASIC, DCT-4+
• Nokia has non standard security
1661: Initial Code Exec
• FBUS/MBUS flasher(not USB)
• Encryption isn’t security
• CBC cleverness
• 1 instruction
• Runtime code exec
• Halfway there?
1661: Dumping the BootROM

• No data fetch
• Jump into it
• Timer cleverness
• State transform
• THUMB/ARM
• No exploits
1661: Carrier Locking
• Lockstate data is signed w RSA
• Unlock code is salted and SHAed
• And checked on startup
• 12-digits long
• Brute force?
• GPGPU
Bleichenbacher
• Attack on low exponent RSA(d=3)
• c^3 mod n
• c^3 < n
• m^(1/3) = c
• Control first 0x80/3 = 0x2A bytes
• Used in IPSF
1661: RSA
• First ~0x10 is checked
• Last 0x14 is the SHA1 hash
• No exploit, right?
00 01 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF 00
JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ
JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ
JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ
JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ
JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ
JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ JJ SS SS SS SS
SS SS SS SS SS SS SS SS SS SS SS SS SS SS SS SS
Wrong
1661: The Math Problem

• Find c such that I control start and end


digits of c^3=m
• Start digits is easy. Take m^(1/3)
• End digits is harder, n time brute
• I don’t know math
• (a+b)^3 =
iPhone
A Case Study
iPhone: Boot Chain

• SecureROM • BootROM
• LLB • Bootloader
• iBoot • Baseband
• Kernel
• Applications
iPhone: Exploits 2g/ipt/3g

• “Pwned” for life


• Buffer overflow in bootrom runtime code
• No check on startup!
iPhone: Other exploits

• 0x24000
• iBoot environment heap overflow
• blackra1n
• Unreleased exploit
iPhone: No Downgrading

• iBSS/iBEC/LLB/iBoot/Kernel are unique


• Heard of a replay attack?
iPhone: Baseband

• Hardware exploit(fakeblank)
• RSA exploit
• Various stack buffer overflows
• AT+XEMN heap overflow(blacksn0w)
Theoretical

• Inputs and outputs


• Shorter is better
• Why so generic? (lol @ TIFF)
PLAYSTATION 3
PS3: INITIAL

• Only unhacked console of the 7th generation

• OtherOS!

• Cell processor

• Security is “well done”

• Spent 3 weeks in Cambridge exploring the hypervisor


PS3: BOOTCHAIN

• PPU/SPU

• asecure_loader -> lv0

• metldr -> lv1ldr -> lv1

• metldr -> lv2ldr -> lv2

• metldr -> appldr -> applications


PS3: EXPLOIT

• There isn’t one

• Well if there is, I’m not clever enough to find it

• Inputs/Outputs

• So I made one
CODING ASSUMPTIONS

• volatile int i=1;

• i++;

• printf(“%d”,i);
CODING ASSUMPTIONS

• Single Threaded and Cacheless

• volatile int i=1; • Write i=1

• i++; • Read i

• printf(“%d”,i); • *Write i=2

• Read i
PS3: VIOLATING ASSUMPTIONS

• HTAB

• Allocate/Map/Deallocate

• Glitch!

• Go ahead, encrypt and add ECC to your memory

• Cache writeback

• Strap up
PS3: A WHOLE NEW WORLD

• Dumped the RAM

• In 3 years, no one outside the company had seen this code

• Yet it’s in 33.5 million peoples houses

• Kid in a candy store


CRYPTO ENGINES

• iPhone has one, PSP has one

• Decryption oracles

• AES

• Can’t get it, but can use it


PS3: CRYPTO

• All crypto is done in SPUs

• SPU isolation mode

• Yet the PPU is in charge

• So really, they are oracles

• So much potential for good security


PS3: THE FLAW

•I can use the oracles

• In fact, you don’t even need the exploit

• But metldr is system unique

• Assume your system will be compromised

• Write once registers to “map” out


QUESTIONS
and maybe answers

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