Fault injection attacks are a physical attack technique used to induce vulnerabilities in otherwise trouble free code and hardware. This is done by altering the target's normal operating environment in an adversarial fashion. For instance, Electromagnetic Fault Injection (EMFI) directs a powerful electromagnetic pulse at a CPU to induce temporary faults. As a result, the code execution is occasionally diverted, and data may get corrupted. By controlling the fault timing, length, and power, as well as the injection scenario we can somewhat deterministically attack systems intended to be secure against attackers with physical access.

Upon hearing about glitch attacks, most people wonder how practical these attacks really are. How much expertise is required, and how likely are they to succeed? In this session we will try and succeed doing these attacks on realistic practice targets. We do this without invasive modifications like de-capping, soldering or drilling. To accomplish this we use an EMFI tool called PicoEMP, which is affordable and easy to use. The workshop is open for all observers and listeners for a 30 minute intro lecture. After the introduction we will spend the remainder of session to conduct hands-on experiments.

There is limited capacity for the hands-on hacking part. We have 7 pre-built EMFI devices and have a separate registration with an at cost sign-up fee. With the fee the device will be yours to take home and continue experimenting.

Participants of the hands-on workshop should bring their own laptops. Details about the registration and supplemental materials are provided at https://faultattack.github.io/