Automated PCB Reverse Engineering

More and more embedded devices pervade business processes and personal activities. From a security perspective this leads to an increased attack surface and higher risk by the common utilization of devices.

In this article, Stephan Klever, Henrik Ferdinand Nölscher and Frank Kargl the first explicit description of the workflow for non-destructive reconstruction of PCBs from the current level of evolution. The proposed method includes a component identification, collection of documents, extraction relevant information from the documentation and fi-physical sounding of signals on the board. They got the software architecture that supports this workflow and simplification of the task of reverse engineering PCBs with the help of automation. Their automated approach allows the analyst to perform the initial three of the four steps in sequence on the computer. This clear division of automated and manual tasks eliminate context switches between search for information and physical sounding.

As a result, these new applications and use cases are thanks to this method, thanks to improved coverage analysis, reduced efforts and structured data storage. More useful information can be found in this article.