Lockpicking in the IoT: ...or why adding BTLE to a device sometimes isn't smart at all

Presented at 33C3 (2016), Dec. 27, 2016, 9:45 p.m. (60 minutes)

"Smart" devices using BTLE, a mobile phone and the Internet are becoming more and more popular. We will be using mechanical and electronic hardware attacks, TLS MitM, BTLE sniffing and App decompilation to show why those devices and their manufacturers aren't always that smart after all. And that even AES128 on top of the BTLE layer doesn't have to mean "unbreakable". Our main target will be electronic locks, but the methods shown apply to many other smart devices as well...

This talk will hand you all the tools you need to go deeply into hacking smart devices. And you should! The only reason a huge bunch of these products doesn't even implement the most basic security mechanisms, might be that we don't hack them enough!

We start by looking at the hardware layer, dissecting PCBs and showing which chips are usually used for building those devices. Even if the firmware is read protected they still can be used as nice devboards with unusual pheripherals - if you can't flash it, you don't own it!

But you don't always have to get out your JTAG interfaces. The most simple part is intercepting an Apps communication with its servers. We show an easy Man-in-the-middle setup, which on the fly breaks the TLS encryption and lets you read and manipulate the data flowing through. This was enough to completely defeat the restrictions on a locks "share to a friend" feature and of course helps you recover your password...

Understanding the API also is the best way to actually OWN your device - giving you the option to replace the vendors cloud service with an own backend. We show how this can be for example used to continue using your bike lock when the kickstarter you got it from goes bankrupt after a presentation about it's bad crypto. Just kidding, they are already notified and working on a patch.

Also going for the wireless interface and sniffing BTLE isn't as difficult as it might sound. Turning a cheap 10 EUR devboard into a sniffer we show how to use Wireshark to dissect the packets going from and to the device and analyze the payload. In some cases this is all what's needed to get the secret key from a single interaction...

Finally we will turn into reverse engineers, showing how to decompile an android app and analyze it's inner working or even modify it to your needs. Using this we show, that a quite popular electronic padlock indeed correctly claims to use AES128, but due to a silly key exchange mechanism we can break it by listening to a single opening command. All details of this 0-day attack will be released during the talk - the vendor has been notified in May.

Last but not least we will go back for the hardware layer, showing that sometimes even simple things like magnets or shims can be used to defeat $80+ electronic locks in seconds...


Presenters:

  • Ray
    Ray's mainly known for only taking questions as an answer, but also is an active lockpicker and electronics hacker. Besides presenting Hacker Jeopardy for over ten years now, Ray is also known for his presentations about lockpicking. He created the first 3D printed key and used laser cutters to circumvent key control of high security handcuffs. For three years now he is also going for electronic locks, bypassing mechanical actors as well as flashing own firmwares "just because he can".

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