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The Art of Fault Injection (TAoFI)

- Advanced Techniques & Attacks -

In cooperation with Raelize B.V., the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) is offering a training course on Fault Injection.

Fault Injection is often the weapon of choice for breaking into devices when exploitable software vulnerabilities are not known or absent. While Fault Injection attacks are nowadays common, typical concepts, methodologies, techniques, and attacks are often not sufficiently understood. While achieving success by simply glitching a target can yield results, it’s important to note that this approach alone doesn’t facilitate the creation of innovative attacks. In this training, students will experience and appreciate the Art of Fault Injection (TAoFI) to exploit the full potential of Fault Injection attacks.

This training assumes, though it is not strictly mandatory, that students possess prior experience with Fault Injection attacks, either obtained at work, at home, or at a previously attended training (e.g., from Colin, Joe Grand, or Thomas). Students are encouraged to work together in teams of two, sharing their experiences, to tackle the challenges together more efficiently. Even though not recommended, students may work individually as well.

Students will be using advanced techniques to characterize the effects of voltage glitches on the Espressif ESP32 System-on-Chip (SoC). The faults resulting from these voltage glitches are carefully analysed and de- scribed to build a thorough understanding of the target’s susceptibility to voltage glitches. This enables the students to create powerful Fault Injection exploits. During this training, rather than focusing on a specific set of tools, the students will focus more on the concepts, methodologies, techniques, and attacks relevant to Fault Injection attacks.

Students will experience, with guidance from experts, performing real-world Fault Injection attacks, that were either disclosed by Raelize or other security researchers. Students will be using the NewAE ChipWhisperer-Husky, typical hardware lab tooling like an oscilloscope and a hardware debugger. Students are provided with a virtual machine (VM) with all the required tooling installed, as well as access to the required hardware.

Upon completing the training, students will be proficient in executing sophisticated Fault Injection attacks on real-world targets using commercially available tooling. The knowledge gained from understanding the underlying concepts, methodologies, techniques, and attacks, can be used by the students to perform novel Fault Injection attacks on other targets of interest.

Format

This training takes students on a multi-day journey during which they perform hands-on exercises (75%) and attend interesting lectures (25%). The students will share their past and current experiences to learn from each other (including the trainers).

Students will get access to a Virtual Machine (VM) that contains all the required software. Students will have access to all the required tooling throughout the training.

Students can continue with the exercises after the training has finished, if they possess the required tooling, which is commercially available from online retailers.

Level

The training level of this training is Intermediate / Advanced.

The fundamentals of Fault Injection are addressed systematically, but students are assumed to have some experience with Fault Injection attacks.

Agenda

The following list of topics are covered by practical exercises (75%) which are supported by (25%) presentations. Most of the exercises are performed on a custom development board based on the Espressif ESP32 System-on-Chip (SoC), on which Raelize performed multiple Fault Injection attacks.

This training starts by building up a solid understanding of the typical concepts and methodologies Fault Injection. Then, students dive straight into the advanced techniques and attacks, which are used to create powerful Fault Injection exploits. Throughout the training, there will be ample opportunity to discuss any relevant topic related to Fault Injection attacks and techniques.

Fundamentals

Advanced Techniques

  • Target characterization; with and without custom code
  • Analysing faults to identify target behaviour
  • Plotting results to identify target behaviour
  • Modelling faults to build attack primitives
  • Advanced trigger techniques for timing
  • Vulnerability identification by reverse engineering
  • Vulnerability verification with hardware debugger
  • Effective glitch parameter selection strategies

Advanced Attacks

Raelize used Riscure’s ElectroMagnetic Fault Injection (EMFI) tooling to perform the research. The students will perform these attacks using the NewAE ChipWhipserer-Husky.

Key Learning Objectives

The key learning objectives of this training are:

  • Understand Fault Injection techniques and attacks like an expert
  • Identify non-trivial vulnerabilities using advanced Fault Injection techniques
  • Create advanced Fault Injection exploits using commercially available tooling
  • Reproduce top-notch security research originally performed by Fault Injection experts

Target group

This training is intended for:

  • Digital police investigators
  • Forensic investigators and Security Analysts in other law-enforcement agencies

Preferably from ENFSI-labs and/or NATO countries.

Prerequisites

The students of this training are expected to:

  • have experience performing basic Fault Injection attacks
  • be familiar with communicating with embedded devices
  • be familiar with typical hardware lab tooling
  • be familiar with programming Python and C
  • be familiar with reverse engineering software
  • be familiar with common cryptography (RSA, AES, and SHA)

Requirements

The students of this training are expected to bring a modern laptop or workstation:

  • with sufficient memory (at least 8 GB)
  • with at least four (4) available USB-A ports (i.e., use a USB hub)
    • Raelize will have extra USB hubs available during the training (USB-C / USB-A)
  • installed with a modern browser (i.e., Google Chrome)
  • installed with VMware Player/Workstation (or VirtualBox)

The Fault Injection tooling will be attached to the VM that Raelize provides. Please, make sure that forward- ing different types of USB devices to the VM works as expected. In our experience, this works best using VMware products (e.g., VMware Workstation Player). Students with a Linux host may also decide to run the training environment without using a VM.

Important: the required tooling is only tested on x86-64-based systems and it’s NOT thoroughly tested on Apple’s ARM-based systems (e.g., M2 or M3).

Dates and duration

Dates
25 - 28 February 2025

Duration
Four consecutive days, 9.00-17.00 h.

Number of participants

5-18 participants.

Costs

  • 4-days Fault Injection training: € 4.250,- per participant. This includes lunches and coffee/tea refreshments
  • Dutch Police: please fill out the registration form, ask for a quotation in the field Remarks. Selection may take place by a police coordinator.

N.B.: No VAT will be added.

Hotel and travel costs are not included.

Location

Netherlands Forensic Institute in The Hague, The Netherlands.

Note

The course is taught in English.

More information and registration

For more information, please complete our contact form. Please indicate on the form you are interested in the training 'Fault Injection'.

For registration, please complete the registration form. If a quotation is needed, please fill out the registration form, ask for a quotation in the field Remarks.