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Battery Firmware Hacking

Type
Slides
Tags
hardware hacking
Authors
Charlie Miller
Event
Black Hat USA 2011
Indexed on
Feb 26, 2014
URL
https://media.blackhat.com/bh-us-11/Miller/BH_US_11_Miller_Battery_Firmware_Public_Slides.pdf
File name
BH_US_11_Miller_Battery_Firmware_Public_Slides.pdf
File size
43.5 MB
MD5
34cdc06e3cd1d1879cf070409f46b143
SHA1
d597e3b34df2fe6b31ccd3cd6b4fcf9999f4651b

Ever wonder how your laptop battery knows when to stop charging when it is plugged into the wall, but the computer is powered off? Modern computers are no longer just composed of a single processor. Computers possess many other embedded microprocessors. Researchers are only recently considering the security implications of multiple processors, multiple pieces of embedded memory, etc. This paper takes an in depth look at a common embedded controller used in Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer batteries, in particular, this controller is used in a large number of MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air laptop computers. In this talk, I will demonstrate how the embedded controller works. I will reverse engineer the firmware and the firmware flashing process for a particular smart battery controller. In particular, I will show how to completely reprogram the smart battery by modifying the firmware on it. Also, I will show how to disable the firmware checksum so you can make changes. I present a simple API that can be used to read values from the smart battery as well as reprogram the firmware. Being able to control the working smart battery and smart battery host may be enough to cause safety issues, such as overcharging or fire.

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