IOActive E-Book | The State of Silicon Chip Hacking in 2025
Silicon chip hacking is an increasing threat this year, making it crucial for security professionals to develop and maintain situational awareness of attack methods and defenses.
Silicon chip hacking, a highly specialized branch of hardware hacking, is an attack discipline focused on compromising systems and extracting secrets directly from silicon chips. Long relegated to theoretical or academic security discussions, chip hacking has evolved to prominent, real-world relevance as attackers improve their ability to exploit vulnerabilities at the hardware level in ways that software-based defenses alone cannot address.
In this e-book, we’ll explore chip hacking in-depth, covering its history, the techniques used, the risks associated, and the importance of robust security measures for defending critical, hardware-centric assets in modern organizations.
Chip Hacking in Practice: Why You Should Care
- Intellectual Property Protection: Protecting secrets stored in silicon chips is crucial for safeguarding intellectual property, such as cryptographic keys and proprietary algorithms. Unauthorized access to these secrets can lead to significant financial and reputational damage.
- Supply Chain Security: Counterfeit chips with fraudulent specifications or hidden backdoors can compromise the security of entire systems, highlighting the need for robust supply-chain security measures. Ensuring the authenticity and integrity of hardware components is essential for maintaining security.
- Long-term Vulnerabilities: Hardware vulnerabilities are difficult to patch once deployed, leading to long-term security risks. These vulnerabilities can persist for the lifetime of the hardware, requiring ongoing vigilance and mitigation efforts.
- Emerging Threats: The proliferation of IoT devices has expanded the attack surface for chip hacking, posing new challenges for security professionals. IoT devices often have limited security measures, making them attractive targets for attackers.
- Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs): Nation-state actors and well-funded adversaries are increasingly using chip hacking for espionage and sabotage, posing significant risks to national security and economic stability. APTs can leverage advanced techniques to infiltrate and compromise critical infrastructure.
Chip Hacking Milestones
2002 - ITV/ON Digital TV platform hacked, resulting in millions of clone payTV cards flooding the market. ON Digital went into administration as a result
2009-2012 - Datel Electronics successfully compromised the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) of Microsoft’s XBOX360 console accessories. Hacking the custom Infineon SLE66 allowed Datel to manufacture fully compatible memory cards, joypads and headsets
2012 - HP printer ink security solution hacked less than two years after its release (all current HP ink ranges have been hacked.)
2023 - Ledger, maker of crypto wallets, demonstrated how they hacked the Coldcard MK4 crypto wallet using Multiple Laser Fault Injection (LFI).
About IOActive
IOActive is a trusted partner for Global 1000 enterprises, providing research-fueled security services across all industries. Our cutting-edge security teams provide highly specialized technical and programmatic services including full stack penetration testing, program efficacy assessments and hardware hacking. IOActive brings a unique attacker’s perspective to every client engagement to maximize security investments and improve clients’ overall security posture and business resiliency.
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