Low Cost Open Source Wireless Hacking – HackRF Jawbreaker

December 13, 2012 12:26 pm Published by Ken Westin

I sat down with Jared Boone a local Portland hardware hacker to discuss HackRF, an open source project he has been working on with Michael Ossmann funded by DARPA. The combination of open source hardware and software will provide security researchers with a low cost tool to intercept and reverse engineer radio signals.

You could think of it like Wireshark for radio signals, enabling the ability to capture data packets across a wide range of frequencies (30MHz – 6GHz) giving it the capability to receive signals from popular devices including including cell phones (GSM), bluetooth devices, Wi-Fi and more. The tool is not only low cost in comparison to other USRPs (Universal Software Radio Peripherals), but also much more compact and portable, particularly for the range of frequencies it scans. The project will provide researchers with the ability to sniff out various communication protocols and analyze them for vulnerabilities.

It is no longer just Wi-Fi that security professionals need to be concerned with, but also the wide range of wireless consumer devices and protocols they use coming into their organization. Tools like HackRF will soon be part of hacker and penetration tester’s arsenal, as if you didn’t have enough to worry about.

Categories: Risk Management

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Ken Westin has contributed 33 posts to The State of Security.

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Ken is a security researcher with 14 years experience building and breaking things through the use/misuse of technology. His technology exploits and endeavors have been featured in Forbes, Good Morning America, Dateline, New York Times, The Economist and has won awards from MIT, CTIA, Oregon Technology Awards, SXSW, Entrepreneur and named in Portland Business Journal's 2013 "40 Under 40". He has trained law enforcement in investigative techniques utilizing technology to unveil organized crime rings, recover stolen cars, even a car jacking amongst other crimes. Ken is reached out to as a subject matter expert in areas of cyber security, privacy and surveillance.