"What doesn't have a computer in it these days?" one's older parents might ask in exasperation. Quite a few things, actually, but not as many as in the past, and fewer still as time goes on. Embedded systems are a crucial part of our technological landscape, and just as open to outside manipulation as more traditional boxes. Today's Black Hat Briefings trio delve into this largely hidden yet increasingly important frontier.
Case in point is Controller Area Network tech, which is the main form of networking used in most vehicles. CAN buses control everything from the camshaft in an engine to power seats. Hopping on the CAN Bus will see the debut of CANard, an open-source toolkit which makes it easy to talk to automotive controllers, perform diagnostic actions, and fuzz the protocols. Attendees will get a firm foundation on CAN operations, and then move on to exploring real-world vulnerabilities in the vehicles we drive everyday.
Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems are the heart of much industrial infrastructure, and they often communicate through the simple but reliable modbus protocol. Understanding SCADA's Modbus Protocol will take you on a tour of this crucial protocol. Exercises will include analyzing modbus network captures, configuring modbus endpoint simulators, and generating modbus traffic to query and fuzz modbus devices. All in a good day's hacking, right?
Finally we'll take a look at system on a chip (SoC) technology, upon which many embedded systems rely. Recognizing the importance of SoCs, Andrea Barisani and cohorts have designed something they call the USB Armory, an open-source, flash drive-sized computer for security applications. They hope its security features and open design will inspire innovative new personal security applications, and at Forging the USB Armory, they'll recount the lessons learned in making a small form factor, high-specification, embedded device with solely open-source tools.
Black Hat Asia 2015 takes place March 24 to 27 at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. Register today! Or at least tomorrow.