Lion Cipher Lab
Analyze IoT firmware for security issues — extract the filesystem with binwalk and hunt for hardcoded secrets
- Digital Forensics & IR (DFIR)
- Intermediate
- ~60 min
- Free · no account required
Why it matters
The smart plug, router, camera, and thermostat in every home run firmware — the software burned onto the chip that makes the hardware do its job. That firmware is often downloadable straight from the vendor's support site, and it is a goldmine of security bugs: hardcoded passwords, forgotten SSH keys, hardcoded server URLs, and years-out-of-date components. Learning to extract and read a firmware image is the single highest-leverage skill in IoT/embedded security, and you can practise the entire workflow with zero physical hardware. This is the exact first move a device-security analyst, a…
What you'll learn
- Firmware analysis
- binwalk extraction
- filesystem triage
- finding hardcoded credentials & keys
- OWASP IoT Top 10 mapping
- embedded/IoT security
Steps in this lab
- What firmware is — and why it's worth reading
- Ground rules — analyse only what you're allowed to, in an isolated box
- Install binwalk — the firmware extraction tool
- Get the training firmware (OWASP IoTGoat)
- Scan the image first — see what's inside before you extract
- Extract the filesystem — the can-opener move
- Explore the filesystem like it's a tiny Linux box (because it is)
- Hunt for the classic firmware bugs — hardcoded secrets, keys, URLs
- Map what you found — and why firmware secrets are catastrophic
- What you just did — and where it leads