This library is intended to make fault injection attacks against microcontrollers accessible for hobbyists and to introduce the topic of voltage glitching. This software offers an easy entry point to carry out your own attacks against microcontrollers, SoCs and CPUs. With the provided and easy to use functions and classes, fault injection projects can be realized quickly.

This library is based on TAoFI-FaultLib. However, several new features have been implemented. For example, the original library was developed to work with the ChipWhisperer-Husky only. This library has been rewritten to work with hardware that consists of a common MOSFET, the Raspberry Pi Pico as the controller and a few other cheap components. The Raspberry Pi Pico is not only cheap and available for the hobbyist, but also a very capable microcontroller. Furthermore, this library supports the ChipWhisperer Pro as well.

The database functionality has been expanded to a certain extent, too. With this implementation, e.g. one can add experiments to a previous measurement campaign.

Set up the project by cloning it:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/MKesenheimer/fault-injection-library.git
cd fault-injection-lib

If you want to make sure that the libraries to be installed do not collide with your installed Python environment, use a virtual environment. Set it up by generating a new virtual environment and by activating it:

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

After these steps we have to install some requirements via pip. Make sure to have pip installed.

pip install -r requirements.txt

Now we have to prepare the Raspberry Pi Pico. Add the Micropython firmware. In general the following script can be used to upload Micropython scripts to the Raspberry Pi Pico.

python lib/upload-micro-python.py --port /dev/<rpi-tty-port> <script.py>

A simple example how the Micropython classes and functions are accessed on the Raspberry Pi Pico, the following "Hello World" program can be executed. This should also be the first check, if everything is set up correctly.

cd blink
python ../helper/upload-micro-python.py --port /dev/<rpi-tty-port> --script mpBlink.py
python test.py --rpico /dev/tty.usbmodem11101

To carry out a fault injection attack with the Raspberry Pi Pico on another microcontroller, the following setup can be used.

First, we connect the Pico Glitcher and a target as follows: Note that the trigger input is connected directly to the reset line. As the reset is released from the device, the trigger signal is sent.

We install the corresponding Micropython script on the Raspberry Pi Pico:

python helper/upload-micro-python.py --port /dev/<rpi-tty-port> --delete-all
python helper/upload-micro-python.py --port /dev/<rpi-tty-port> --script lib/mpGlitcher.py

Although the software is based on Micropython, using the PIO functions of the Raspberry Pi Pico, very precise switching operations can be made and triggered on external signals.

Next, we switch to the directory pico-glitcher and execute the script which controls our attack.

cd ../pico-glitcher
python pico-glitcher.py --target /dev/<target-tty-port> --rpico /dev/<rpi-tty-port> --delay 1_000 2_000 --length 100 150

The script resets the target, arms the pico glitcher, waits for the external trigger (reset high) and emits a glitch of a given length after a certain delay. The response of the target is then read and classified. The results are entered into a database, which can be processed in the browser using the command:

python ../analyzer/taofi-analyzer --directory databases

This attack can be used, for example, to bypass the read-out protection (RDP) of Apple Airtags and to download the firmware of these devices. See the video by stacksmashing for more details.

A more advanced attack is, for example, a fault injection attack against the STM32 bootloader and bypassing the read-out protection of these chips. This attack has been first described by SEC consult and uses the ChipWhisperer Pro for the injection controller. However, to glitch these devices successully, no expensive hardware is necessary, as it is demonstrated with the following scripts.

Connect the Pico Glitcher and the STM32 target according to the following schematic: Here, the trigger line is connected to the UART-TX line, since we want to trigger on a specific UART word that is sent during the bootloader stage. Furthermore, "Boot0" pin of the STM32 needs to be pulled high in order to activate the bootloader. This pin is exposed on the Nucleo header. In addition, due to the inherent limitations of the drawing program Fritzing, the glitching line was connected directly to 3.3V of the target in the schematics. In a real setup, however, the glitching line should be soldered as close as possible to the power supply of the STM32 and the capacitors should be removed nearby.

Install the Raspberry Pi Pico Micropython scripts:

cd lib
python upload-micro-python.py --port /dev/<rpi-tty-port> --script mpGlitcher.py

Next, change into stm32-glitching and execute the following script.

cd stm32-glitching
python pico-glitcher.py --target /dev/<target-tty-port> --rpico /dev/<rpi-tty-port> --delay 100_000 200_000 --length 100 150

Or make use of the ChipWhisperer Pro by executing:

cd stm32-glitching
python pro-glitcher.py --target /dev/<target-tty-port> --delay 100_000 200_000 --length 100 150

Again, use the following command to analyze the collected datapoints:

python ../analyzer/taofi-analyzer --directory databases

If everything goes as expected, a successful run should look something like this:

One can resume inserting datapoints into the database of the most recent run by supplying the resume flag:

python pico-glitcher.py ... --resume

As mentioned above, only a Raspberry Pi Pico and a few other components are required to use this software. However, in order to achieve the best results, a circuit board was developed that was adapted directly for the fault-injection-library.

The board consists of a Raspberry Pi Pico, two level shifters for in- and outputs with any voltage, and glitching transistors that can switch up to 66 amps.

There are several connection options for different voltage sources, from 1.8V, 3.3V to 5V. The Pico Glitcher v1 can also be supplied with any external voltage via VCC_EXTERN. To power the target board, it is supplied with power via the VTARGET connection. The output of this voltage source can be controlled via the fault-injection-library, i.e. the target can be completely disconnected from power by executing the helper/power-cycle-target.py command. This allows a cold start of the target to be carried out in the event of error states that cannot be eliminated by a reset.