Electronics Archives

Electronics

Supply Chain Risk: Raspberry Pi Device Used for War Shipping

October 7, 2014 Paul Roberts

An interesting post on supply chain security over at Security Affairs. The post looks at a new approach to supply chain surveillance (and, presumably, attacks): ‘war shipping.’ War shipping is, of course, a play on the ‘war driving’ scene from the early days of consumer wifi, in which cars outfitted with antennae would canvas whole cities, documenting open wi-fi hotspots that could be used to grab some free Internet. In this case, Security Affairs notes a shippable board-sized package designed by security expert Larry Pesce of Paul’s Security Weekly (fka Pauldotcom). The device can be contained in a standard UPS shipping box and delivered to a target network to passively surveil or even attack it. The kit is built on a Raspberry Pi b_ with an AWUS051NH wireless card, a cheap battery charger, kismet and custom software. Pesce demonstrated the device at Derbycon, a Louisville, Kentucky based event last month. The device includes both […]

Unpatchable USB Malware Now Open Source | WIRED

October 2, 2014 Paul Roberts

Andy Greenberg over at Wired has an interesting piece of news coming out of last week’s Derbycon hacker conference in Louisville, Kentucky. According to Greenberg and Wired, researchers Adam Caudill and Brandon Wilson showed off their own version of Karsten Nohl and Jakob Lell’s BadUSB malware, and that they’d released the code on Github. Their presentation raises the stakes for USB manufacturers to fix the BadUSB problem or leave hundreds of millions of users vulnerable, Greenberg writes. At a presentation at the Black Hat Briefings in August, Nohl and Lell, both of Security Research Labs (SRLabs), showed how the controller chips inside common USB devices can be reprogrammed, allowing USB peripherals to impersonate other kinds of devices. Among other things, Nohl demonstrated how a BadUSB infected device could emulate a USB keyboard, issuing commands to a connected machine using the permissions of the logged-in user. Alternatively, an infected USB could spoof a […]

DARPA Tech Identifies Counterfeit Microelectronics

October 2, 2014 Paul Roberts

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration (DARPA) announced on Wednesday that advanced software and equipment it developed to spot counterfeit microelectronics in U.S. weapons and cyber security systems has been handed over to military contractors to continue development. DARPA said the product of its Integrity and Reliability of Integrated Circuits (IRIS) program: the Advanced Scanning Optical Microscope (ASOM) technology was transferred to the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) in Crane, Indiana, where it will be used to inspect microelectronics for signs of tampering or compromise. The technology was developed with the help of SRI International, an IRIS contractor. Read more Security Ledger coverage of supply chain risks. “The ASOM technology housed at NSWC Crane will help engineers provide forensic analysis of microelectronics, including integrated circuits (IC) confiscated by law enforcement officials,” DARPA said in a statement. The DoD is a major buyer of integrated circuit chips, which are mainly manufactured outside the U.S. […]

Building an Unhackable Autonomous Vehicle – CityLab

September 11, 2014 Paul Roberts

The folks over at The Atlantic have an intriguing take on the subject of “connected vehicles” and autonomous driving. Now this is a vision that we’ve been chasing for more than 50 years (consider all the technicolor “highway of tomorrow” films from the 50s and 60s). And we’re on the cusp of realizing it. Google’s self-driving car is racking up the miles and automated features like hands free cruise control and collision avoidance are making their way into production vehicles. As Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic’s (cool) CityLab writes, however, there’s one major fly in the ointment when you consider the super efficient, algorithmically driven road of the future: humans. Specifically: Madrigal, in the course of writing an article on how to build an ‘unhackable’ car poses a scenario that I think is very likely: humans who subvert or otherwise game vehicle automation features to suit their own needs. Imagining the orderly procession […]

IEEE Issues Standard For Sensors, Tiny Machines

September 10, 2014 Paul Roberts

A new standard published by the IEEE may accelerate the spread and use of the Internet of Things: providing a common reference to govern the performance of microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS. The standard, IEEE 2700-2014, was recently approved by the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) Standards Board. It will provide a common methodology for specifying the performance of tiny sensors that are becoming more and more common in consumer electronics and other industries. That should make it easier for vendors , including Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to begin integrating two or more sensors without having to worry about integration challenges. The standards apply to a wide range of small sensors that currently populate everything from mobile phones to wearable devices like Apple’s newly announced smart watch. These include accelerometers, magnetometers, gyrometers and gyroscopes, barometers and other pressure sensors, humidity sensors, temperature sensors, ambient light sensors and proximity sensors, IEEE said. “The industry has been struggling […]