An Interview with Colin O'Flynn - Aspirated Adamantine Attacks

Welcome, Colin O’Flynn creator of the ChipWhisperer!

• The ChipWhisperer won 2nd place in the Hackaday Prize.
• There is a new version called the ChipWhisperer lite, currently on Kickstarter. It's also capable of breaking security, it can do a side channel attack on AES256. This is called sidechannel analysis using power analysis.
• Smart cards are credit cards with chip and pin security.
• Colin got started designing gimbaled cameras. He also worked at Atmel low power wireless division.
• Currently, Colin is a PhD candidate at Dalhousie University in the EE program (specializing on cyber security). He received some funding from the Canadian research council.
• The AES algorithm encryption works 8 bits at a time.
• The ChipWhisperer is capable of cracking an encrypted bootloader. It could also send messages to an IoT device that only accept encrypted packets.
• This was initially used for stealing satellite tv and other content plays.
• Chris thinks it would be easier to detect stealing by Statistical Process Control.
• Colin did some manufacturing in China. Because they were manufactured by hand, making 5-10 was a good deal.
• For high frequency stuff, users can use a downconverter to measure GHz clocks (only need MHz of bandwidth).
• The full ChipWhisperer has a PLL on board.
• Dave suggests using spread spectrum to further confuse someone trying to hack a device.
• The target market for the CW is hobbyists up to people that are creating embedded devices.
• The HW has a Spartan6 (for ADC handling) and a SAM3 (for USB handling).
• Colin does training at Black Hat.

If you're designing embedded devices, you should definitely have the ChipWhisperer Lite in your toolbox, support the Kickstarter today!