Facing the screens lined up in front of him, Alexandre attempts to force access to an electronic chip using “electromagnetic discharges.” Its objective: to test the resistance limits of a smartphone against possible attacks, by the manufacturer.
In Labège (Haute Garonne), on the outskirts of Toulouse, the Information Technology Security Assessment Center (Cesti) of the French giant Thales looks like a clinic, with its large white benches and measuring devices.
Security evaluator for embedded systems, Alexandre, whose last name is not specified for confidentiality reasons, works on a Samsung smartphone, at the request of the brand that wants to certify its security.
“We dismantled it to directly access the main chip,” a kind of brain of the product, he says, pointing to the device, now without a screen and reduced to a small rectangular electronic circuit connected to several probes.
If a chip can be tampered with, “this could provide access to information about the phone’s trade secrets,” or potentially “to a user’s sensitive data.” Risks that manufacturers want to limit and measure: to sell their products they must obtain certain certifications.
X-rays and statistics.
In France, it is the National Information Systems Security Agency (Anssi) that issues these labels, some of which are recognized abroad. On a global scale, the EMVCo organization organizes the certification of payment methods, in particular by telephone.
Their approvals are based on evaluation reports from approved centers of expertise, such as Thales.
The specialized department of the group, which counts Apple and Samsung among its clients, employs around fifty people. Cybersecurity engineers work alongside specialists in physics, chemistry, or artificial intelligence (AI) to perform software and hardware security testing, primarily on phones.
To put themselves in the shoes of malicious actors, the team must be “at the right level”, stresses Joan Mazenc, director of Cesti. “That means being able to measure the robustness of a product against attackers ranging from a young man in his garage to the enemy state or a criminal organization that has a lot of money to invest.”
The teams have access to state-of-the-art equipment thanks to a collaboration with the National Center for Space Studies (Cnes). An X-ray radiology device the size of a phone booth allows for “non-destructive testing”: a smartphone will emerge intact but revealing its internal structure.
Evolution of threats
“Most of the time we work in collaboration with the manufacturer, so if we need information, we have access to it (…), but we must have the ability to measure how complicated it is for an attacker to find that information,” explains Joan Mazenc.
Given the evolution of threats, brands are improving their techniques to protect themselves from attacks. In response, Cesti is trying to find methods to remove these protections.
It tries to fool an AI integrated into a drone that supposedly recognizes military vehicles. If the device is “shot down on the battlefield (…) as an attacker we can recover the device and recover information about it,” he explains by measuring the electromagnetic reactions of the electronic card that contains the AI.
With this information and statistical tools, Gabriel can figure out how to modify an image “so that this tank no longer looks like a tank, but like a golf cart.”
Research that should allow the team to maintain its “reputation” in the certification market. “It takes years to gain confidence, but it takes a few minutes to lose it,” says Joan Mazenc.
Source: BFM TV
