Gili Yankovitch
Hardware, Cryptography and Embedded Exploitation
The Sword of Secrets begins with hands-on hardware exploration. You'll review schematics, trace signal paths, and study datasheets to understand how the system works. Many challenges rely on spotting subtle design choices and using that knowledge to uncover hidden functionality or bypass protections.
You’ll face cryptographic challenges inspired by real-world weaknesses. The tasks focus on identifying flawed assumptions and implementation issues—requiring a solid understanding of how cryptography can fail in practice, not just in theory.
The sword uses a RISC-V microcontroller, and many challenges involve working at the firmware level. You’ll interact with low-level code and hardware interfaces, using precise control of execution to reveal vulnerabilities and gain deeper system access.
New Challenges Monthly
The Sword of Secrets supports OTA updates over USB, making it easy to flash new content without any extra hardware. Each update adds a new stage or puzzle, expanding the challenge over time. New riddles will be released on a monthly basis, so even after solving the initial stages, there will always be something new to explore, exploit, or reverse-engineer.
These updates aren’t just plain binaries—they’re encrypted using a key embedded deep inside the microcontroller, protected by on-chip protections. In theory, this means the riddles can only be decrypted and executed by the device itself. In practice? If you think you can extract that key, bypass the protection, or decrypt the firmware off-device—go ahead, try it. It’s not supposed to be possible… bonus points if you pull it off.
Mathieu Stephan
Leonardo Suriano
allain
J. Ian Lindsay