The Hardware Hacking Handbook
Breaking Embedded Security with Hardware Attacks
Jasper van Woudenberg and Colin O'Flynn (NewAE / ChipWhisperer) on real hardware attacks: bus sniffing, fault injection, side-channel power analysis, and the lab work that turns a black box into a known target.
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- Published
- 2021
- Publisher
- No Starch Press
- Pages
- 512
- Language
- English
Read this if
Embedded and IoT security researchers ready to move past firmware-only work and pick up the soldering iron. Also the right book for offensive practitioners auditing devices where the chip is the threat model: hardware wallets, automotive ECUs, smart locks, set-top boxes.
Skip this if
Readers who only want to read about hardware hacking. The book assumes you will buy a logic analyzer, a ChipWhisperer or similar, and break a few dev boards; without lab time, the middle chapters become abstract.
Key takeaways
- Side-channel and fault-injection attacks are no longer exotic: with sub-$300 tooling, an attacker can pull keys from MCUs that ship in shipping products today.
- Bus interception (UART, JTAG, SWD, SPI flash dumps) is the unglamorous workhorse of hardware research and pays for itself across nearly every target.
- Threat modeling for hardware is fundamentally different from software: physical access changes the cost curve of every attack, and the chapters on adversary models reflect that.
Notes
Pair with Practical IoT Hacking (Chantzis et al.) for the network-layer continuation and Practical Reverse Engineering (Dang/Gazet/Bachaalany) for the firmware analysis side. The ChipWhisperer ecosystem (newae.com, chipwhisperer.io) is the canonical lab platform for the book's exercises and the authors' professional work. The Hardware Hacker (bunnie Huang) is the right cultural companion.
What to read before
What to read before The Hardware Hacking Handbook →Intermediate · 2003
Hacking the Xbox
Andrew "bunnie" Huang on the original Xbox: hardware modding as the entry path into reverse engineering, plus a frank account of the legal fight that followed.
Intermediate · 2021
Practical IoT Hacking
Five-author guide to IoT pentesting covering hardware probing, radio (BLE / Zigbee / LoRa), embedded firmware, and the protocols that connect cheap devices to vulnerable backends.
Intermediate · 2016
The Car Hacker's Handbook
Craig Smith's guide to automotive bus systems (CAN, LIN, FlexRay), ECUs, infotainment surfaces, and how to fuzz, trace and exploit modern vehicles.
What to read next
What to read after The Hardware Hacking Handbook →Advanced · 2009
Les virus informatiques : théorie, pratique et applications
Éric Filiol's reference French-language treatment of computer virology. Formal theory, infection mechanisms, offensive and defensive applications, with academic rigor rare on the topic.
Advanced · 2018
Practical Binary Analysis
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Advanced · 2024
Evasive Malware
Kyle Cucci on the anti-analysis arms race: sandbox detection, anti-debug, anti-VM, packing, and the analyst-side tooling and tradecraft that get past those layers.
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Alternatives to The Hardware Hacking Handbook →Intermediate · 2021
Practical IoT Hacking
Five-author guide to IoT pentesting covering hardware probing, radio (BLE / Zigbee / LoRa), embedded firmware, and the protocols that connect cheap devices to vulnerable backends.
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The Car Hacker's Handbook
Craig Smith's guide to automotive bus systems (CAN, LIN, FlexRay), ECUs, infotainment surfaces, and how to fuzz, trace and exploit modern vehicles.
Intermediate · 2003
Hacking the Xbox
Andrew "bunnie" Huang on the original Xbox: hardware modding as the entry path into reverse engineering, plus a frank account of the legal fight that followed.