Tag Archives: Truste Platform Module

[Security] Tarnovsky Explains Infineon TPM Hack

On the Black Hat 2010 conference in Crystal City notorious smart card hacker Christopher Tarnovsky explained how he managed to hack current Trusted Platform Modules by Infineon.

This time Tarnovsky managed to read secured data from TPM chips like RSA and DES crypto keys. His approach took six months and a lab consisting of devices for about US$ 200,000. After having found out the exacty way to compromise Infineon’s chips it took only six hours to compromise an XBox 360’s TPM chip.

On the Black Hat 2008 in Amsterdam Tarnovsky said he was offered US$ 100,000 to crack the Xbox 360’s TPM:

A Microsoft engineer is wondering: “Did you take an interest in the processor of our Xbox360 game console?” – “I was offered 100’000 dollars to break it”, says Tarnovsky. “But I replied that that wasn’t enough.”

For people generally interested in approaching smart card security check this article with a video Wired.com featuring Tarnovsky in his security lab.