Hardware Hacking on a budget: Reverse Engineering hardware tools

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Presented at Texas Cyber Summit 2023 by

Conrad Franke

Hardware hacking tools can be quite expensive. During this presentation, I would like to highlight some of the methods that engineers and hackers can use (and do use) to make a cheaper hardware hacking kit. I will be going over the basics of electronics, components, and forward development of hardware tools.We will use open source software like kicad to make PCB's and design schematics. We will go over the basics of reverse engineering for electronic components and how one can start to cut costs through samples and reducing parts. The audience will then have an opportunity to create their own tool from one that is currently very difficult and expensive to get. Then talk about returning products after use ensuring the fabbed out tool works that was reverse engineered. This will include some examples and clones such as: Altera Cyclone 2 DEVKIT board, TSOP40 breakout board, PEAKcan, Multimeter continuity tester, and an FTDI rs232 adapter. The concepts of this talk can inspire others to then go and build their own hacking kit and have a basic understanding of how a hacking tool is made.