Simon Says – Musings of a Technology CTO

Recently it was announced with much fanfare that the now-ubiquitous “TPM” chip found in most modern computers had been hacked. This obviously unnerved a lot of people, especially those hanging the safety of their secrets on free solutions like Microsoft Bitlocker which use the TPM to provide convenience to their users.

The attack, invented about 60 years ago, but elegantly implemented by Christopher Tarnovsky of Flylogic involved attacking the hardware of the chip itself by uncasing it and probing its signal pathways – something that seems difficult until you read their blog and realize they do it every day.

Chris used a combination of off-the-shelf acids and rust-remover solutions to dissolve first the outer casing of the chip, then the wire grid tamper-proofing shields inside.

Once “undressed” he was able to probe and monitor what was going on inside anonymously. Read more…