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January 02, 2025: Genetic Algorithm

A project log for PicoGlitcher v2

A hardware device to carry out voltage glitching attacks against microcontrollers with a Raspberry Pi Pico

matthias-kesenheimerMatthias Kesenheimer 01/02/2025 at 14:540 Comments

In some cases, finding the parameters of a successful glitch can be quite tedious. Especially if the possible parameter space is large (see multiplexing and pulse-shaping). Therefore, the search for a suitable parameter point must be done somewhat more intelligently than with a brute force approach.

In the case of the fault-injeciton-library, a genetic algorithm has been implemented that can be used to search for the optimum parameter points.

If implemented correctly (and with a suitable configuration of the OptimizationController) you should expect clustering experiments around successful glitches. See the figure below for an example output of a glitching campaign. In this case, the ESP32v1.3 was glitched via the multiplexing method. More details can be found here.

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