Fault injection, also known as "glitching," is a process to intentionally cause a system to misbehave in a way that is beneficial to an attacker. The technique is commonly used against microcontrollers to defeat code protection features or affect cryptographic operations. Once employed only by the hardcore, it is now accessible for any hardware hacker to add to their arsenal.
In this presentation, Joe provides an overview, demonstration, and personal stories of injecting faults into embedded systems in order to reveal their secrets.
Slides: Shot Through the Heart: An Introduction to Fault Injection (Revised August 29, 2024)