Useful tips on firmware reverse engineering I wish I had known earlier. Follow my journey of learning how to reverse engineer by staring on a Fitness tracker and Bluetooth chip firmware!
Check out my channel for more reverse engineering videos: @jiskac
CCC conference talk by Daniel and me on hacking Fitbit firmware: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccbwtrrB4lk
REcon conference talk by Dennis and me on reversing Broadcom Bluetooth chips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIy4ETQV82M
Chapters:
00:00 - Linux & open-source software
02:00 - Learning 80C51 assembly at school
03:05 - Studying, a waste of time?
04:03 - Analyze Fitbit firmware with zero experience
05:50 - Everything is open-source now!
06:31 - You ship it, we brick it!
07:07 - What is reverse engineering?
08:15 - Static vs. dynamic reversing
10:33 - Hooking
11:47 - Firmware reversing is hard!
12:20 - Firmware challenge #1: Debugging
13:10 - Firmware challenge #2: Function starts, code, data
14:28 - Firmware challenge #3: Identifying open-source
17:01 - Firmware challenge #4: Locating modules and cross-references
17:51 - Firmware challenge #5: Symbols?
20:29 - Real-world targets
23:42 - Getting started