You probablly have at least a few cheap & suspicious devices from various online shops in your house, and you've also probablly wondered how they work. In this tutorial, you will learn how to dump & investigate device's firmwares using a cheap 3$ CH341A programmer.
Requirements
- A computer (running Debian Linux for this tutorial)
- A CH341A programmer available on websites like AliExpress.
Connecting to the device's chip
In this tutorial, we will be connecting to a cheap camera's firmware chip using the clip, included in the CH341A's set. Bellow are some images on how to connect to the chip, along with some pictures of the camera's motherboard.
Beware: Always check the chip's correct voltage requirements, otherwise you could brick it by frying the chip. We're not responsible for any damages.
Plug the CH341A in
After it's all connected, you can now plug in the CH341A into your computer.
Install the required software
For this tutorial, you will need to have a tool called flashrom installed. To install it, simply type the command bellow into your Debian distro's terminal:
sudo apt install flashromDump the chip's firmware!
Now that you have everything set up, you can type this command in to dump the firmware using your CH341A:
sudo flashrom --programmer ch341a_spi -r firmware.binCongratulations! If everything went right, you've now successfully dumped your chip's firmware.
Part 2 - Extracting & Modifying The Dumped Firmware's data
In these 2 plus tutorials, you will learn how to extract important data & even modify it, and write the modified firmware back to the chip.