Background

In the world of microcontrollers, a bootloader is a special piece of firmware that is made to let the user upload new programs into memory. This is especially useful for devices with complex code that may need to be patched or otherwise updated in the future - a bootloader makes it possible for the user to upload a patched version of the firmware onto the micro. The bootloader receives information from a communication line (a USB port, serial port, ethernet port, WiFi connection, etc...) and stores this data into program memory. Once the full firmware has been received, the micro can happily run its updated code.

There is one big security issue to worry about with bootloaders. A company may want to stop their customers from writing their own firmware and uploading it onto the micro. For example, this might be for protection reasons - hackers might be able to access parts of the device that weren't meant to be accessed. One way of stopping this is to add encryption. The company can add their own secret signature to the firmware code and encrypt it with a secret key. Then, the bootloader can decrypt the incoming firmware and confirm that the incoming firmware is correctly signed. Users will not know the secret key or the signature tied to the firmware, so they won't be able to "fake" their own.

This tutorial will work with a simple AES-256 bootloader. The victim will receive data through a serial connection, decrypt the command, and confirm that the included signature is correct. Then, it will only save the code into memory if the signature check succeeded. To make this system more robust against attacks, the bootloader will use cipher-block chaining (CBC mode). Our goal is to find the secret key and the CBC initialization vector so that we could successfully fake our own firmware.

       |<-------- Encrypted block (16 bytes) ---------->|
       |                                                |
+------+------+------+------+------+------+ .... +------+------+------+
| 0x00 |    Signature (4 Bytes)    |  Data (12 Bytes)   |   CRC-16    |
+------+------+------+------+------+------+ .... +------+------+------+

            +------+
CRC-OK:     | 0xA1 |
            +------+

            +------+
CRC Failed: | 0xA4 |
            +------+

Setting up the Hardware

This tutorial uses the CW1173 ChipWhisperer-Lite hardware. This hardware does not require any special setup - it should be ready to go out-of-the-box.

Note that you don't need hardware to complete the tutorial. Instead, you can download example traces from the ChipWhisperer Site. Just look for the traces titled AVR: AES256 Bootloader (ChipWhisperer Tutorial #A5).

Capturing the Traces

Once the hardware is ready, we can capture some traces for our attack using the ChipWhisperer Capture software. If you somehow got to the 5th Advanced Tutorial without getting this software ready, you can follow the helpful guide at Installing ChipWhisperer.

In some of the previous tutorials, we entered all of the capture settings by hand. Since we are civilized humans armed with technology, we can use a script to do all of this setup for us. A pre-written Python script is provided at #Appendix A: Capture Script. Take a look at this code and notice what it does:

• it fills in the scope, target, and trace format that we'll use;
• it connects to the hardware; and
• it loads all of the hardware parameters for us. Nice!

Copy this script into a .py file somewhere convenient. Then, perform the following steps to finish the capture:

1. Run the capture script, which will open a ChipWhisperer Capture window with everything connected for us.
2. Open the terminal (Tools > Terminal) and connect to the board. While the terminal is open, press the Capture 1 button. A single byte of data should appear in the terminal. This byte will either be a1 (CRC failed) or a4 (CRC OK). If you see any other responses, something is wrong.

   

3. Once you're happy with this, open the General Settings tab and set the Number of Traces. You should need around 100 traces to break AES.
4. Press the Capture Many button to record the 100 traces. You'll see the new traces plotted on-screen.
5. Once the program is finished capturing the traces, save the project. Put it somewhere memorable and give it a nice name.

Finding the Encryption Key

Now that we have our traces, we can go ahead and perform the attack. As described in the background theory, we'll have to do two attacks - one to get the 14th round key, and another (using the first result) to get the 13th round key. Then, we'll do some post-processing to finally get the 256 bit encryption key.

# Imports for AES256 Attack
from chipwhisperer.analyzer.attacks.models.AES128_8bit import getHW
from chipwhisperer.analyzer.models.aes.funcs import sbox, inv_sbox, inv_shiftrows, inv_mixcolumns, inv_subbytes

class AES256Attack(object):
    numSubKeys = 16

    @staticmethod
    def leakage(textin, textout, guess, bnum, setting, state):
        if setting == 13:
           knownkey = [0xea, 0x79, 0x79, 0x20, 0xc8, 0x71, 0x44, 0x7d, 0x46, 0x62, 0x5f, 0x51, 0x85, 0xc1, 0x3b, 0xcb]
           xored = [knownkey[i] ^ textin[i] for i in range(0, 16)]
           block = xored
           block = inv_shiftrows(block)
           block = inv_subbytes(block)
           block = inv_mixcolumns(block)
           block = inv_shiftrows(block)
           result = block
           return getHW(inv_sbox((result[bnum] ^ guess)))

>>> from chipwhisperer.analyzer.models.aes.funcs import shiftrows,mixcolumns
>>> knownkey = [0xC6, 0xBD, 0x4E, 0x50, 0xAB, 0xCA, 0x75, 0x77, 0x79, 0x87, 0x96, 0xCA, 0x1C, 0x7F, 0xC5, 0x82]
>>> key = shiftrows(knownkey)
>>> key = mixcolumns(key)
>>> print " ".join(["%02x" % i for i in key])
c6 6a a6 12 4a ba 4d 04 4a 22 03 54 5b 28 0e 63

c6 6a a6 12 4a ba 4d 04 4a 22 03 54 5b 28 0e 63 ea 79 79 20 c8 71 44 7d 46 62 5f 51 85 c1 3b cb

94 28 5d 4d 6d cf ec 08 d8 ac dd f6 be 25 a4 99 c4 d9 d0 1e c3 40 7e d7 d5 28 d4 09 e9 f0 88 a1

Analysis of Encrypted Files

TODO

Analysis of Power Traces for IV

TODO

Example:

#Imports for IV Attack
from Crypto.Cipher import AES

def initPreprocessing(self):
    self.preProcessingResyncSAD0 = preprocessing.ResyncSAD.ResyncSAD(self.parent)
    self.preProcessingResyncSAD0.setEnabled(True)
    self.preProcessingResyncSAD0.setReference(rtraceno=0, refpoints=(6300,6800), inputwindow=(6000,7200))
    self.preProcessingResyncSAD1 = preprocessing.ResyncSAD.ResyncSAD(self.parent)
    self.preProcessingResyncSAD1.setEnabled(True)
    self.preProcessingResyncSAD1.setReference(rtraceno=0, refpoints=(4800,5100), inputwindow=(4700,5200))
    self.preProcessingList = [self.preProcessingResyncSAD0,self.preProcessingResyncSAD1,]
    return self.preProcessingList

class AESIVAttack(object):
   numSubKeys = 16

   @staticmethod
   def leakage(textin, textout, guess, bnum, setting, state):
       knownkey = [0x94, 0x28, 0x5D, 0x4D, 0x6D, 0xCF, 0xEC, 0x08, 0xD8, 0xAC, 0xDD, 0xF6, 0xBE, 0x25, 0xA4, 0x99,
                   0xC4, 0xD9, 0xD0, 0x1E, 0xC3, 0x40, 0x7E, 0xD7, 0xD5, 0x28, 0xD4, 0x09, 0xE9, 0xF0, 0x88, 0xA1]
       knownkey = str(bytearray(knownkey))
       ct = str(bytearray(textin))

       aes = AES.new(knownkey, AES.MODE_ECB)
       pt = aes.decrypt(ct)
       return getHW(bytearray(pt)[bnum] ^ guess)

Timing Attacks for Signature

Appendix A: Capture Script

The following:

#!/usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
#
# Copyright (c) 2013-2014, NewAE Technology Inc
# All rights reserved.
#
# Authors: Colin O'Flynn
#
# Find this and more at newae.com - this file is part of the chipwhisperer
# project, http://www.assembla.com/spaces/chipwhisperer
#
#    This file is part of chipwhisperer.
#
#    chipwhisperer is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
#    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
#    the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
#    (at your option) any later version.
#
#    chipwhisperer is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
#    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
#    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
#    GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
#
#    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
#    along with chipwhisperer.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
#=================================================
#
#
#
# This example captures data using the ChipWhisperer Rev2 capture hardware.
# The target is a SimpleSerial board attached to the ChipWhisperer.
#
# Data is saved into both a project file and a MATLAB array
#

#Setup path
import sys

import time

#Import the ChipWhispererCapture module
import chipwhisperer.capture.ChipWhispererCapture as cwc
from chipwhisperer.capture.targets.TargetTemplate import TargetTemplate
from chipwhisperer.capture.targets.SimpleSerial import SimpleSerial_ChipWhisperer

#Check for PySide
try:
    from PySide.QtCore import *
    from PySide.QtGui import *
except ImportError:
    print "ERROR: PySide is required for this program"
    sys.exit()

import thread

import scipy.io as sio

exitWhenDone=False

def pe():
    QCoreApplication.processEvents()

# Class Crc
#############################################################
# These CRC routines are copy-pasted from pycrc, which are:
# Copyright (c) 2006-2013 Thomas Pircher <tehpeh@gmx.net>
#
class Crc(object):
    """
    A base class for CRC routines.
    """

    def __init__(self, width, poly):
        """The Crc constructor.

        The parameters are as follows:
            width
            poly
            reflect_in
            xor_in
            reflect_out
            xor_out
        """
        self.Width = width
        self.Poly = poly


        self.MSB_Mask = 0x1 << (self.Width - 1)
        self.Mask = ((self.MSB_Mask - 1) << 1) | 1

        self.XorIn = 0x0000
        self.XorOut = 0x0000

        self.DirectInit = self.XorIn
        self.NonDirectInit = self.__get_nondirect_init(self.XorIn)
        if self.Width < 8:
            self.CrcShift = 8 - self.Width
        else:
            self.CrcShift = 0

    def __get_nondirect_init(self, init):
        """
        return the non-direct init if the direct algorithm has been selected.
        """
        crc = init
        for i in range(self.Width):
            bit = crc & 0x01
            if bit:
                crc ^= self.Poly
            crc >>= 1
            if bit:
                crc |= self.MSB_Mask
        return crc & self.Mask


    def bit_by_bit(self, in_data):
        """
        Classic simple and slow CRC implementation.  This function iterates bit
        by bit over the augmented input message and returns the calculated CRC
        value at the end.
        """
        # If the input data is a string, convert to bytes.
        if isinstance(in_data, str):
            in_data = [ord(c) for c in in_data]

        register = self.NonDirectInit
        for octet in in_data:
            for i in range(8):
                topbit = register & self.MSB_Mask
                register = ((register << 1) & self.Mask) | ((octet >> (7 - i)) & 0x01)
                if topbit:
                    register ^= self.Poly

        for i in range(self.Width):
            topbit = register & self.MSB_Mask
            register = ((register << 1) & self.Mask)
            if topbit:
                register ^= self.Poly

        return register ^ self.XorOut

class BootloaderTarget(TargetTemplate):
    paramListUpdated = Signal(list)

    def setupParameters(self):
        self.ser = SimpleSerial_ChipWhisperer()
        self.keylength = 16
        self.input = ""
        self.crc = Crc(width=16, poly=0x1021)

    def setOpenADC(self, oadc):
        try:
            self.ser.setOpenADC(oadc)
        except:
            pass

    def setKeyLen(self, klen):
        """ Set key length in BITS """
        self.keylength = klen / 8

    def keyLen(self):
        """ Return key length in BYTES """
        return self.keylength


    def paramList(self):
        return []

    def con(self):
        self.ser.con()
        self.ser.flush()

    def dis(self):
        self.close()

    def close(self):
        if self.ser != None:
            self.ser.close()
            self.ser = None
        return

    def init(self):
        pass

    def setModeEncrypt(self):
        return

    def setModeDecrypt(self):
        return

    def loadEncryptionKey(self, key):
        pass

    def loadInput(self, inputtext):
        self.input = inputtext

    def isDone(self):
        return True

    def readOutput(self):
        #No actual output
        return [0] * 16

    def go(self):
        # Starting byte is 0x00
        message = [0x00]

        # Append 16 bytes of data
        message.extend(self.input)

        # Append 2 bytes of CRC for input only (not including 0x00)
        crcdata = self.crc.bit_by_bit(self.input)

        message.append(crcdata >> 8)
        message.append(crcdata & 0xff)

        # Write message
        for i in range(0, 5):
            self.ser.flush()
            self.ser.write(message)
            time.sleep(0.1)
            data = self.ser.read(1)

            if len(data) > 0:
                resp = ord(data[0])

                if resp == 0xA4:
                    # Encryption run OK
                    break

                if resp != 0xA1:
                    raise IOError("Bad Response %x" % resp)

        if len(data) > 0:
            if resp != 0xA4:
                raise IOError("Failed to communicate, last response: %x" % resp)
        else:
            raise IOError("Failed to communicate, no response")

    def checkEncryptionKey(self, kin):
        return kin

class userScript(QObject):

    def __init__(self, capture):
        super(userScript, self).__init__()
        self.capture = capture


    def run(self):
        cap = self.capture

        #User commands here
        print "***** Starting User Script *****"

        tbootloader = BootloaderTarget()

        cap.setParameter(['Generic Settings', 'Scope Module', 'ChipWhisperer/OpenADC'])
        cap.setParameter(['Generic Settings', 'Trace Format', 'ChipWhisperer/Native'])

        cap.target.setDriver(tbootloader)

        #Load FW (must be configured in GUI first)
        cap.FWLoaderGo()

        #NOTE: You MUST add this call to pe() to process events. This is done automatically
        #for setParameter() calls, but everything else REQUIRES this
        pe()

        cap.doConDis()

        pe()

        #Example of using a list to set parameters. Slightly easier to copy/paste in this format
        lstexample = [['CW Extra', 'CW Extra Settings', 'Trigger Pins', 'Front Panel A', False],
                      ['CW Extra', 'CW Extra Settings', 'Trigger Pins', 'Target IO4 (Trigger Line)', True],
                      ['CW Extra', 'CW Extra Settings', 'Clock Source', 'Target IO-IN'],
                      ['OpenADC', 'Clock Setup', 'ADC Clock', 'Source', 'EXTCLK x4 via DCM'],
                      ['OpenADC', 'Trigger Setup', 'Total Samples', 11000],
                      ['OpenADC', 'Trigger Setup', 'Offset', 0],
                      ['OpenADC', 'Gain Setting', 'Setting', 45],
                      ['OpenADC', 'Trigger Setup', 'Mode', 'rising edge'],
                      #Final step: make DCMs relock in case they are lost
                      ['OpenADC', 'Clock Setup', 'ADC Clock', 'Reset ADC DCM', None],

                      ['Generic Settings', 'Auxilary Module', 'Toggle FPGA-GPIO Pins'],
                      ['GPIO Toggle', 'Standby State', 'High'],
                      ['GPIO Toggle', 'Post-Toggle Delay', 150],
                      ['GPIO Toggle', 'Toggle Length', 100],
                      ]

        # For IV: offset = 70000

        #Download all hardware setup parameters
        for cmd in lstexample: cap.setParameter(cmd)

        #Let's only do a few traces
        cap.setParameter(['Generic Settings', 'Acquisition Settings', 'Number of Traces', 50])

        #Throw away first few
        cap.capture1()
        pe()
        cap.capture1()
        pe()

        print "***** Ending User Script *****"


if __name__ == '__main__':
    #Make the application
    app = cwc.makeApplication()

    #If you DO NOT want to overwrite/use settings from the GUI version including
    #the recent files list, uncomment the following:
    #app.setApplicationName("Capture V2 Scripted")

    #Get main module
    capture = cwc.ChipWhispererCapture()

    #Show window - even if not used
    capture.show()

    #NB: Must call processEvents since we aren't using proper event loop
    pe()
    # Call user-specific commands
    usercommands = userScript(capture)

    usercommands.run()

    app.exec_()

    sys.exit()

Appendix B AES-256 14th Round Key Script

NB: This script works for 0.10 release or later, see local copy in doc/html directory of chipwhisperer release if you need earlier versions

Full attack script, copy/paste into a file then add as active attack script:

# AES-256 14th Round Key Attack
from chipwhisperer.common.autoscript import AutoScriptBase
#Imports from Preprocessing
import chipwhisperer.analyzer.preprocessing as preprocessing
#Imports from Capture
from chipwhisperer.analyzer.attacks.CPA import CPA
from chipwhisperer.analyzer.attacks.CPAProgressive import CPAProgressive
import chipwhisperer.analyzer.attacks.models.AES128_8bit
#Imports from utilList

class userScript(AutoScriptBase):
    preProcessingList = []
    def initProject(self):
        pass

    def initPreprocessing(self):
        self.preProcessingList = []
        return self.preProcessingList

    def initAnalysis(self):
        self.attack = CPA(self.parent, console=self.console, showScriptParameter=self.showScriptParameter)
        self.attack.setAnalysisAlgorithm(CPAProgressive,chipwhisperer.analyzer.attacks.models.AES128_8bit,chipwhisperer.analyzer.attacks.models.AES128_8bit.LEAK_HW_INVSBOXOUT_FIRSTROUND)
        self.attack.setTraceStart(0)
        self.attack.setTracesPerAttack(99)
        self.attack.setIterations(1)
        self.attack.setReportingInterval(10)
        self.attack.setTargetBytes([0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15])
        self.attack.setTraceManager(self.traceManager())
        self.attack.setProject(self.project())
        self.attack.setPointRange((0,10992))
        return self.attack

    def initReporting(self, results):
        results.setAttack(self.attack)
        results.setTraceManager(self.traceManager())
        self.results = results

    def doAnalysis(self):
        self.attack.doAttack()

Appendix C AES-256 13th Round Key Script

NB: This script works for 0.10 release or later, see local copy in doc/html directory of chipwhisperer release if you need earlier versions

Full attack script, copy/paste into a file then add as active attack script:

# AES-256 13th Round Key Script
from chipwhisperer.common.autoscript import AutoScriptBase
#Imports from Preprocessing
import chipwhisperer.analyzer.preprocessing as preprocessing
#Imports from Capture
from chipwhisperer.analyzer.attacks.CPA import CPA
from chipwhisperer.analyzer.attacks.CPAProgressive import CPAProgressive
import chipwhisperer.analyzer.attacks.models.AES128_8bit
# Imports from utilList

# Imports for AES256 Attack
from chipwhisperer.analyzer.attacks.models.AES128_8bit import getHW
from chipwhisperer.analyzer.models.aes.funcs import sbox, inv_sbox, inv_shiftrows, inv_mixcolumns, inv_subbytes

class AES256Attack(object):
   numSubKeys = 16

   @staticmethod
   def leakage(textin, textout, guess, bnum, setting, state):
       if setting == 13:
          knownkey = [0xea, 0x79, 0x79, 0x20, 0xc8, 0x71, 0x44, 0x7d, 0x46, 0x62, 0x5f, 0x51, 0x85, 0xc1, 0x3b, 0xcb]
          xored = [knownkey[i] ^ textin[i] for i in range(0, 16)]
          block = xored
          block = inv_shiftrows(block)
          block = inv_subbytes(block)
          block = inv_mixcolumns(block)
          block = inv_shiftrows(block)
          result = block
          return getHW(inv_sbox((result[bnum] ^ guess)))

class userScript(AutoScriptBase):
   preProcessingList = []
   def initProject(self):
       pass

   def initPreprocessing(self):
       self.preProcessingResyncSAD0 = preprocessing.ResyncSAD.ResyncSAD(self.parent)
       self.preProcessingResyncSAD0.setEnabled(True)
       self.preProcessingResyncSAD0.setReference(rtraceno=0, refpoints=(9063,9177), inputwindow=(9010,9180))
       self.preProcessingList = [self.preProcessingResyncSAD0,]
       return self.preProcessingList

   def initAnalysis(self):
       self.attack = CPA(self.parent, console=self.console, showScriptParameter=self.showScriptParameter)
       self.attack.setAnalysisAlgorithm(CPAProgressive, AES256Attack, 13)
       self.attack.setTraceStart(0)
       self.attack.setTracesPerAttack(100)
       self.attack.setIterations(1)
       self.attack.setReportingInterval(25)
       self.attack.setTargetBytes([0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15])
       self.attack.setTraceManager(self.traceManager())
       self.attack.setProject(self.project())
       self.attack.setPointRange((8000,10990))
       return self.attack

   def initReporting(self, results):
       results.setAttack(self.attack)
       results.setTraceManager(self.traceManager())
       self.results = results

   def doAnalysis(self):
       self.attack.doAttack()

Appendix D AES-256 IV Attack Script

NB: This script works for 0.10 release or later, see local copy in doc/html directory of chipwhisperer release if you need earlier versions

Full attack script, copy/paste into a file then add as active attack script:

#IV Attack Script
from chipwhisperer.common.autoscript import AutoScriptBase
#Imports from Preprocessing
import chipwhisperer.analyzer.preprocessing as preprocessing
#Imports from Capture
from chipwhisperer.analyzer.attacks.CPA import CPA
from chipwhisperer.analyzer.attacks.CPAProgressive import CPAProgressive
import chipwhisperer.analyzer.attacks.models.AES128_8bit
# Imports from utilList

# Imports for AES256 Attack
from chipwhisperer.analyzer.attacks.models.AES128_8bit import getHW

#Imports for IV Attack
from Crypto.Cipher import AES

class AESIVAttack(object):
   numSubKeys = 16

   @staticmethod
   def leakage(textin, textout, guess, bnum, setting, state):
       knownkey = [0x94, 0x28, 0x5D, 0x4D, 0x6D, 0xCF, 0xEC, 0x08, 0xD8, 0xAC, 0xDD, 0xF6, 0xBE, 0x25, 0xA4, 0x99,
                   0xC4, 0xD9, 0xD0, 0x1E, 0xC3, 0x40, 0x7E, 0xD7, 0xD5, 0x28, 0xD4, 0x09, 0xE9, 0xF0, 0x88, 0xA1]
       knownkey = str(bytearray(knownkey))
       ct = str(bytearray(textin))

       aes = AES.new(knownkey, AES.MODE_ECB)
       pt = aes.decrypt(ct)
       return getHW(bytearray(pt)[bnum] ^ guess)

class userScript(AutoScriptBase):
    preProcessingList = []
    def initProject(self):
        pass

    def initPreprocessing(self):
        self.preProcessingResyncSAD0 = preprocessing.ResyncSAD.ResyncSAD(self.parent)
        self.preProcessingResyncSAD0.setEnabled(True)
        self.preProcessingResyncSAD0.setReference(rtraceno=0, refpoints=(6300,6800), inputwindow=(6000,7200))
        self.preProcessingResyncSAD1 = preprocessing.ResyncSAD.ResyncSAD(self.parent)
        self.preProcessingResyncSAD1.setEnabled(True)
        self.preProcessingResyncSAD1.setReference(rtraceno=0, refpoints=(4800,5100), inputwindow=(4700,5200))
        self.preProcessingList = [self.preProcessingResyncSAD0,self.preProcessingResyncSAD1,]
        return self.preProcessingList

    def initAnalysis(self):
        self.attack = CPA(self.parent, console=self.console, showScriptParameter=self.showScriptParameter)
        self.attack.setAnalysisAlgorithm(CPAProgressive, AESIVAttack, None)
        self.attack.setTraceStart(0)
        self.attack.setTracesPerAttack(100)
        self.attack.setIterations(1)
        self.attack.setReportingInterval(25)
        self.attack.setTargetBytes([0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15])
        self.attack.setTraceManager(self.traceManager())
        self.attack.setProject(self.project())
        self.attack.setPointRange((4800,6500))
        return self.attack

    def initReporting(self, results):
        results.setAttack(self.attack)
        results.setTraceManager(self.traceManager())
        self.results = results

    def doAnalysis(self):
        self.attack.doAttack()