Security

Uncover, Understand, Own - Regaining Control Over Your AMD CPU

The AMD Platform Security Processor (PSP) is a dedicated ARM CPU inside your AMD processor and runs undocumented, proprietary firmware provided by AMD. It is a processor inside your processor that you don't control. It is essential for system startup. In fact, in runs before the main processor is even started and is responsible for bootstrapping all other components. This talk presents our efforts investigating the PSP internals and functionality and how you can better understand it.
Our talk is divided into three parts: The first part covers the firmware structure of the PSP and how we analyzed this proprietary firmware. We will demonstrate how to extract and replace individual firmware components of the PSP and how to observe the PSP during boot. The second part covers the functionality of the PSP and how it interacts with other components of the x86 CPU like the DRAM controller or System Management Unit (SMU). We will present our method to gain access to the, otherwise hidden, debug output. The talk concludes with a security analysis of the PSP firmware. We will demonstrate how to provide custom firmare to run on the PSP and introduce our toolchain that helps building custom applications for the PSP. This talk documents the PSP firmware's proprietary filesystem and provides insights into reverse-engineering such a deeply embedded system. It further sheds light on how we might regain trust in AMD CPUs despite the delicate nature of the PSP.

Additional information

Type lecture
Language English

More sessions

12/27/19
Security
Borg
Nowadays, Windows is still the most popular OS used in the world. It's very important for red teams / attackers to maintain the authority after they get into the OS by penetration test. So they need a vulnerability to hide in windows to escalate their account to system privilege.
12/27/19
Security
Hannes Mehnert
Dijkstra
Is the way we run services these days sustainable? The trusted computing base -- the lines of code where, if a flaw is discovered, jeopardizes the security and integrity of the entire service -- is enormous. Using orchestration systems that contain millions of lines of code, and that execute shell code, does not decrease this. This talk will present an alternative, minimalist approach to secure network services - relying on OCaml, a programming language that guarantees memory safety - composing ...
12/27/19
Security
littlelailo
Eliza
This talk is about running unsigned code at boot on iOS 11. I will demonstrate how you can start out with a daemon config file and end up with kernel code execution.
12/27/19
Security
Will Scott
Ada
It is easier to chat online securely today than it ever has been. Widespread adoption of signal, wire, and the private mode of WhatsApp have led a broader recognition of the importance of end-to-end encryption. There's still plenty of work to be done in finding new designs that balance privacy and usability in online communication.
12/27/19
Security
nba::yoh
Dijkstra
The 3DS is reaching end of life but has not revealed all its weaknesses yet. This talk will go through the process of reverse engineering an undocumented communication protocol and show how assessing hard-to-reach features yields dangerous results, including remote code execution exploits!
12/27/19
Security
Samuel Groß
Ada
So called “0-click” exploits, in which no user interaction is required to compromise a mobile device, have become a highly interesting topic for security researchers, and not just because Apple announced a one million dollar bug bounty for such exploits against the iPhone this year. This talk will go into the details of how a single memory corruption vulnerability in iMessage was remotely exploited to compromise an iPhone. The insights gained from the exploitation process will hopefully help ...
12/27/19
Security
Ada
Herzstück der digitalen Gesundheitsversorgung für 73 Millionen Versicherte ist die hochsichere, kritische Telematik-Infrastruktur mit bereits 115.000 angeschlossenen Arztpraxen. Nur berechtigte Teilnehmer haben über dieses geschlossene Netz Zugang zu unseren medizinischen Daten. Ein "Höchstmaß an Schutz" also, wie es das Gesundheitsministerium behauptet? Bewaffnet mit 10.000 Seiten Spezifikation und einem Faxgerät lassen wir Illusionen platzen und stellen fest: Technik allein ist auch ...