reverser-firmware

name	reverser-firmware
description	Router / IoT firmware extraction pipeline — unpack nested filesystems, locate web server, identify backdoor credentials.
metadata	{"subdomain":"reverse-engineering","when_to_use":"firmware extraction router iot binwalk nested filesystem web server backdoor credential squashfs cramfs","mitre_attack":["T1542","T1078.001"]}

Firmware Extraction Playbook

1. Extract

apt-get install -y binwalk squashfs-tools cramfsprogs
mkdir -p /workspace/fw && cd /workspace/fw
binwalk -eM /workspace/firmware.bin
find _firmware.bin.extracted -name "squashfs-root" -o -name "rootfs"

2. Map the root

ROOT=$(find _firmware.bin.extracted -type d -name "squashfs-root" | head -1)
ls -la "$ROOT/etc/"
cat "$ROOT/etc/passwd"          # look for hardcoded users
cat "$ROOT/etc/shadow"          # password hashes — feed to hashcat
cat "$ROOT/etc/init.d/S*" 2>/dev/null
cat "$ROOT/etc/rc.d/rc.local" 2>/dev/null

3. Web server binary

find "$ROOT" -name "httpd" -o -name "lighttpd" -o -name "nginx" -o -name "boa"
# For each: bin_identify + bin_strings + bin_symbols_report

CGI binaries under www/cgi-bin/ are the highest-yield targets — often one file per endpoint with direct system() calls from query params.

4. Hardcoded credentials

bin_strings(path=web_server_binary, category_filter="secret")
bin_strings(path=web_server_binary, category_filter="crypto")

Also check for base64 / hex key patterns near strcmp calls (manual audit via Ghidra — use bin_ghidra_script to seed).

5. Authentication bypass audit

Look for:

• Magic string comparisons (strcmp(user, "admin"))
• Debug backdoor paths (/debug, /cgi-bin/shell, .sys)
• UART/JTAG enabled in bootargs (check bootargs.txt in extraction)

6. Cross-reference CVEs

For the extracted busybox / kernel / dropbear / openssl versions:

cve_by_package("busybox", "1.27.2", "OSS-Fuzz")
cve_lookup("CVE-2021-28831,CVE-2023-0464")

7. Record

Add:

• repo node for the firmware image
• file nodes for each interesting binary
• credential nodes for any hardcoded creds
• vulnerability nodes for each audit finding
• entrypoint for each cgi-bin path