Cheating in eSports: How to Cheat at Virtual Cycling Using USB Hacks

Presented at DEF CON 27 (2019), Aug. 11, 2019, 2 p.m. (45 minutes).

Athletes are competing in virtual cycling by riding real bikes on stationary trainers which power the in-game athletic performance. Riders train and compete online against each other. New racing teams are even competing in Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) sanctioned events. Better at hacking than riding? Me, too. I'll expand on the dubious achievements of prior cycling cheaters by showing how to use the open source USBQ toolkit to inspect and modify USB communications between the Zwift application and the wireless sensors that monitor and control the stationary trainer. USBQ is a Python module and application that uses standard hardware, such as the Beaglebone Black, to inspect and modify communications between USB devices and the host. You'll ride away with a lesson on building your own customized USB man-in-the-middle hacking tool, too.


Presenters:

  • Brad Dixon - Security Consultant, Carve Systems
    Brad once told his parents that if they gave him a Commodore 64 it would be the last computer he'd ever want. He never got that Commodore 64. Nevertheless Brad managed to become a computer nerd at a young age. Brad studied Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech and jumped into embedded software engineering. He worked for many years helping developers to design embedded Linux into telecom, network, and mobile products. Brad also took a turn as a product manager for embedded development tools and a mobile location analytics product. At Carve he hacks IoT, embedded, and Linux systems. Github: https://github.com/rbdixon

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