This is the public repository for the Hardware Assisted Security track of the Security Summer School (SSS). It contains information available to participants: session content, slides, activities support files. Apart from SSS participants, you can use this content by yourself to learn more about Hardware Assisted Security.
As with all SSS tracks, the Hardware Assisted Security track consists of multiple sessions. One session typically covers a particular topic of the track. Ideally you would go through the sessions orderly, but you can jump ahead to a topic of interest.
Each session has its own folder.
The README.md file from a session folder details the topic of the session and includes practical demos of tools and snippets of code.
After reading the session contents, jump to the hands-on activities. A typical activity will challenge you to solve / exploit a given issue and obtain a flag. Read the activity description in the session contents and then use the activity support file to get to a solution. Each activity will develop your practical skills and help you get a better understanding of the session topics.
Activities come in two forms:
- tutorials: that provide a step-by-step detailing of the solution.
- challenges: that only state the goal and provide an initial skeleton (and maybe some hints), then the rest is up to you. Even so, challenge activity folders store the reference solution for you to take a sneak peak in case you're lost.
In case you have questions or want to know more about a topic, use the Discussions tab or join the SSS Discord community.
In security, we define the notion of root of trust, which is the component of the system that is expected to be secure, and which other components can rely upon. In the most cases, the root of trust for a system is the hardware. If the hardware is insecure, everything that relies upon it will also be insecure. How can an operating system guarantee the security of a system, if we can alter what instructions are executed by the CPU? This brings us to the subject of this (mini-)track: what security measures are implemented in the hardware, how we can use them and how easy is it to break them.
Warning: There will be a lot of theory, and less breaking stuff, unlike the other tracks. This track is mostly about learning how to use the hardware to better defend a system. There will be tasks to use the described features, but breaking them requires a lot of work and access to a physical hardware, in most cases.
There is also a folder, helpers, that contains information about topics that are not the subject of this track, but are needed to understand some of the concepts described here.
If you are unsure about you knowledge, or want some reminders while going through the sessions, feel free to read the helpers.
Where needed, practical work items may be included.
A session folder consists of:
README.md: session contents, written in GitHub Markdownactivities/: each activity has its own folder with support files (including the reference solution)assets/: support files for session contents (images, diagrams, code snippets, packet captures, etc.)slides/: session slides
An activity folder consists of:
public/: support files for the activity: binary files, helper scripts, packet captures etc.sol/: the reference solution of the activity. Tutorial activities feature aREADME.mdfile in the solution folder, with a detailing of the solution.
Contributions are welcome. See the contribution guide on how you could report or fix issues and on how you can improve the content.
Reviewers are requested to follow the reviewing guide.
For in-depth discussions, please join the SSS Discord community.
