Extracting a Bootloader's AES Key via a Power Analysis Side Channel Attack

This segment is a live Q&A with Mark Kirschenbaum after his talk on extracting a bootloader's AES key with a power analysis side channel attack. The host opens by asking what motivated the talk and how he got into hardware work. He explains that he was inspired by an earlier security camera talk at the conference, and that about two decades of building programmers and debuggers gave him a practical route into analyzing devices.

The discussion then turns to defenses. Asked whether manufacturers could make this kind of attack impossible, he says destroying the chip is not the answer. Dedicated security chips use hardening such as differential signaling to make leakage harder to measure, while general-purpose microcontrollers tend to be much noisier and easier to observe. He says some leakage remains in almost every design, so hardening reduces the risk rather than removing it.

For newcomers, he points to low-cost boards and open tools for JTAG and side-channel learning, and to a community of hardware hackers who share their tooling online. He closes by mentioning that a hardware hacking village may return to the conference once in-person events resume, giving attendees a chance to try these techniques hands-on.