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Releases: e-m-b-a/emba

EMBA v2.0.0 - A brave new world of firmware analysis

16 Dec 10:59
a51d0cc

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The last few weeks looked a bit more silent to the outside ... but cool things were going on in the background. Now, it is time to share all the great things we were working on ;)

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In the early days of the EMBA firmware analysis environment one of our visions was a bit like the following:

EMBA should be an environment for fully automated detection and verification of known and unknown vulnerabilities in the product and firmware sector

The complete environment needs to be available as Open-Source which allows you to be part of it. Everyone should be able to perform high quality firmware security analysis, perform better IoT penetration tests, create the best SBOMs, scale and optimize firmware security research at all. Additionally, everyone should be able to modify, integrate and adopt EMBA easily (btw. this is the reason why we decided to use Bash), improve EMBA and being part of EMBA as user, tester, developer, feedback giver, idea generator, bug hunter ... you get the idea of Open-Source ;)

Vulnerability analysis in the field of firmware is a complex task, but with EMBA we have built some quite solid tooling and strategies over the years. This would not be possible without all the other awesome Open-Source projects out there!

EMBA is standing on the shoulders of giants. EMBA is standing on your shoulders! Thank you!

We were always fascinated by the idea of automatically starting up the device during an EMBA analysis in a controlled emulated environment. This means that we will be able to verify the already discovered results directly on the running firmware. We are not at the end of this journey yet, but it looks like this goal is not completely unrealistic anymore! In our opinion this release is a milestone to our ultimate goal of vulnerability detection and verification.

The road to version 2.0.0 was very rough and bumpy. Over the last few months we tested, tested, tested, looked at emulation output and improved every little piece a little bit! The goal we had in mind was ...

Let's bring our system emulation engine to the next level

After months of testing, building kernels (shoutout to @HoxhaEndri), analyzing, fixing, refactoring, testing again and screaming multiple times we are now quite happy with the results! Enjoy the following benchmark results of some of our firmware test sets:

  • FirmAE corpus

The original FirmAE corpus was created somewhere before 2020. So, today this corpus is quite outdated. Nevertheless, as the FirmAE project was already optimized to a 79% success rate with at least one network service available we were interested if we can further improve this high success rate. We took this corpus as an initial benchmark indicator to ensure our performance is not too bad. The following overview gives some insights into the results from all three system emulation frameworks: firmadyne, FirmAE and EMBA

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While firmadyne was the initial framework and other environments like FirmAE and also EMBA were built around the same approach, it had only 16% of success rate. This means in only 16% of the firmware tests firmadyne was able to bring the firmware automatically to a state where network services were reachable. FirmAE improved this rate to 79% success rate. And now, EMBA got this rate to 95% success rate with at least one network service available. Altogether EMBA was able to identify more than 6000 network services on 1074 systems.


The Fraunhofer FKIE builds regularly the so-called Home Router Security Report (Check this report). We used these reports as inspiration and built some firmware sets over time:

  • Firmware Testset 2020

On a fresh and unoptimized firmware corpus we can get a better idea of more real-world results of the different engines. Neither firmadyne, nor FirmAE were trained on this firmware corpus. This resulted in significantly lower success rates:

image

The firmadyne results dropped down to 5% (from 16% on the FirmAE corpus) of success rate and the FirmAE rates dropped to 30% (from 79% on the FirmAE corpus). In comparison EMBA was able to double the FirmAE results and fully automatically emulate 87% of firmware to a state where at least one network service was available. In total EMBA detected more than 600 network services on 126 analyzed firmware images.

With the integration of the dependency track API it is now also possible to automatically transfer the generated SBOM into your dependency track instance and track all the vulnerabilities in a beautiful vulnerability and SBOM management tool:

image

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This integration mechanism enhances your vulnerability handling and pentesting process massively and shows the flexibility of EMBA.


  • Firmware Testset 2022

The testset of the year 2022 looked a bit like a duplication of the results of 2020. Firmadyne got 2% of the tested firmware to a reachable network service, FirmAE already improved the state to 16% and EMBA climbed up to 76%. This time with around 400 reachable network services on 121 analyzed firmware images:

image


  • Firmware Testset 2024

Also on a more modern testset from 2024 the picture changed not that much. Firmadyne now has only 1% success rate, FirmAE improved the emulation results to 17% and EMBA stays quite stable at 77%:

image

These stable emulation results across a huge amount of different firmware images from different vendors with different architectures from different time periods highlight the magic of EMBA and give us a quite good base for further development.


Additionally, we want to take a look at the following highlights:

  • We have 7 new contributors! This is probably the most amazing thing in our release notes! Thanks for supporting EMBA with your effort!
  • EMBA got a new kernel for the system emulation engine. We moved away from the old 4.1 firmadyne/FirmAE based kernel to a much newer 4.14.336 LTS Kernel <- This is a very big thing, and you need to clap now ;) (see #1575 by @HoxhaEndri and the Kernel repo here)
  • Rocky Linux support by @jurrejelle <- Clap again
  • EMBA reached another milestone - 3000 Github stars and counting (If you like EMBA you should also give us a star!)
  • The EMBA book is available here
  • Copilot code check results integrated - part 1 of a lot
  • Improve internal docker base image verification checks
  • We build a whole new testing environment where we can run a huge number of EMBA tests in parallel <- This is so freaking cool. Good job @BenediktMKuehne
  • Improve SBOM generation with better Java support - see also #1765
  • Add Java decompilation and security analysis capabilities - see also #1828
  • Add integration of the dependency track API to automatically upload and further process the generated SBOM - see also the wiki
  • The launcher is now available - see the Wiki for further details
  • Thanks to the great work of @gluesmith2021 we were able to switch to NVDv2. With this step we are hopefully well prepared for the near future. Check the great work here ossf/cve-bin-tool#5265
  • We have a new web shop for EMBA merch here. Check it out and show your love for Open-Source firmware analysis with EMBA
  • So many new notes, videos, papers and blogposts that deal with EMBA or use EMBA as helper or benchmark tool somewhere in the Internet (with your ideas, your papers, using it and showing how hard we fail you make EMBA to what it is!) - check the Wiki section
  • Finally, we had the joy of being part of the beautiful TROOPERS25 security conference. The recording of our talk "SBOMs the right way" is now available here

Beside your ongoing support with feedback, testing, working on issues and spreading EMBA you can now also support EMBA as a sponsor.
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Check it out here and start being an essential part of the future of EMBA.
Breaking News: Check also our new shop for EMBA merch here.

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It is always a pleasure to welcome new...

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EMBA v1.5.2 - SBOM - The next generation

11 Mar 08:38
fbe1811

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We need to talk about serious SBOM tooling! The CRA will hit us all ... quite hard and very soon. Check the dates (from Wikipedia):

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And check the SBOM requiremenents here:

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To give it a bump there are also some penalties if you are not able to fulfill the CRA:

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We have seen this coming a while ago and decided to move EMBA from the firmware analyzer to the SBOM tool (without loosing our main competence in firmware analysis). During the last months we have rewritten main parts of EMBA to ensure we can build SBOMs. The goal was not only to build some SBOM ... our goal was always to build SBOMs that provide more value, are reproducible and accurate. This also includes targets where no package manager is available but also systems with multiple package managers.

The following highlights happened somehow during the last weeks:

  • cve-bin-tool integration for module f17 resulted in a rewrite of f20 (which was completely removed for this release)
  • SBOM VEX support via module f17 (integrated into the main SBOM but also available seperated)
  • Further sources for SBOM generation are supported - Check our wiki
  • Improved S09 threading by @gluesmith2021
  • Massive bug fixing - more and more bug reports from our fellow EMBA users are coming in
  • More and more users are also helping in fixing stuff ... thank you for supporting EMBA
  • Improved the system check on EMBA startup resulted in speeding up EMBA
  • Improved our quality checking process of newly built EMBA base images
  • Integrated auto generation of kernel and gcc data into our github pipeline (available in config directory)

Beside your ongoing support with feedback, testing, working on issues and spreading EMBA you can now also support EMBA as a sponsor.
image

Check it out here and start being an essential part of the future of EMBA


It is always a pleasure to welcome new contributors to EMBA. This time we welcome:


How can you reach us and stay up to date? Just take one of these channels:


Now, start your fresh Kali Linux (put enough CPU power and RAM into it) and install EMBA:

└─$ git clone https://github.com/e-m-b-a/emba.git
└─$ cd emba 
└─$ sudo ./installer.sh -d

This will install all pre-requisites, including the docker base image and the CVE database, which will need some bandwith, harddrive space and time.

Afterwards, you are ready to analyse your first firmware with EMBA:

└─$ sudo ./emba -l ~/log -f ~/firmware -p ./scan-profiles/quick-scan.emba

For updating your oudated EMBA installation, please check the update section in our wiki.


What's Changed

  • Fix missing kernel config analysis because of lKCONFIG_EXTRACTED/KCON… by @chconil in #1415
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1417
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1418
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1419
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1421
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1420
  • Version identifier bugs / New binwalk with improved decryptor by @m-1-k-3 in #1416
  • fix s118 threading output / p99 csv by @m-1-k-3 in #1423
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1427
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1424
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1425
  • Quick version identifier update by @github-actions in #1426
  • p65 rpm, fixes, cleanup by @m-1-k-3 in #1428
  • Quick version identifier update by @github-actions in #1432
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1431
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1430
  • add ipk module, fix rpm db module by @m-1-k-3 in #1429
  • remove grep log by @m-1-k-3 in #1437
  • fix x86 run script by @m-1-k-3 in #1435
  • update copyright 2025 by @m-1-k-3 in #1438
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1440
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1441
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1442
  • Initial json logger by @m-1-k-3 in #1444
  • Little error handling updates by @m-1-k-3 in #1443
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1447
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1446
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1445
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1449
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1450
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1451
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1454
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1455
  • Update grype.yml by @BenediktMKuehne in #1456
  • Manual update GCC and kernel release configs by @m-1-k-3 in #1457
  • Add gcc and linux workflow by @m-1-k-3 in #1460
  • Fix empty results from S09 because of "grep: Argument list too long" by @gluesmith2021 in #1461
  • CVE bin tool integration, VEX support -> F20 replacement by @m-1-k-3 in #1452
  • S09 unique bins by @m-1-k-3 in #1465
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1469
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1468
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1467
  • Effective (and fast) S09 threading by @gluesmith2021 in #1462
  • Linux kernel version database update by @github-actions in #1470
  • SBOM: C/C++ Conan package management integration by @m-1-k-3 in #1473
  • disabled status-bar for embark by @BenediktMKuehne in #1459
  • Revert "disabled status-bar for embark" by @BenediktMKuehne in #1474
  • fix results from race condition in MD5 list generation by @gluesmith2021 in #1471
  • S115 #1476 by @m-1-k-3 in #1477
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1481
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1480
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1482
  • Linux kernel version database update by @github-actions in #1479
  • little fixes and cleanup by @m-1-k-3 in #1483
  • Foscam extraction (P20) fixes by @m-1-k-3 in #1484
  • CVE update db by @m-1-k-3 in #1486
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1488
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1491
  • Quick version identifier update by @github-actions in #1490
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1489
  • Linux kernel version database update by @github-actions in #1487
  • fixing bugs by @m-1-k-3 in #1492
  • SBOM cpan/php/python module...
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EMBA v1.5.1 - Rise from the dead or Binwalk is back in town

17 Dec 12:11
7676311

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Let's travel back in time ... In EMBA version 1.2.3 we started removing the old, rusty and unmaintained binwalk (v2) as main extractor from EMBA. See here. Big thanks to the great folks of unblob for jumping in with the most powerful extraction engine that is currently available.

And now fast forward to September 2024 ... Check this bomb

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Great news! The new binwalk was not just a quick update, it was a complete rewritten version in rust! As usual we are trying to implement cool projects quite early to get hands on experience ... especially if these are the projects from our own IoT hacking beginnings years ago ;)

Fast forward to Dezember 2024 ...

As the new binwalk is damn fast, EMBA got it as initial extractor into the extraction pipeline! Check it out and let us and Craig know how it performs and how you like it. In this place it is also quite easy to see where binwalk is failing and Unblob is jumping in. Btw. this does not mean that Binwalk is better compared to Unblob! In most of our testcases it was faster but from the success rate Unblob is currently the most powerful extraction engine which automatically jumps in as 2nd extraction engine and is also used for our deep-extraction mode.

The best extraction frameworks together in EMBA ... this must be true love :-D

Beside this big update we have a bunch of other little and big things for you:

  • The SBOM engine which was introduced in version 1.5.0 got updates everywhere (new json engine, dependencies are now handled, untracked files can be included, improved package manager integration, optimised static version detection ...)
  • EMBA is getting more and more powerful and faster, faster, faster
  • Our huge code refactoring part 1 of X is finished
  • Regular docker base image update (new capa version, new Ghidra version, ...)
  • Kali Linux 2024.4 supported

Beside the technical updates, we were at BlackHat MEA with an Arsenal demo of EMBA. We talked to a lot of interested and interesting people and got some cool ideas for EMBA. You can check our Arsenal slides here and some pictures here


Beside your ongoing support with feedback, testing, working on issues and spreading EMBA you can now also support EMBA as a sponsor.
image

Check it out here and start being an essential part of the future of EMBA


It is always a pleasure to welcome new contributors to EMBA. This time we can welcome:


How can you reach us and stay up to date? Just take one of these channels:


Now, start your fresh Kali Linux (put enough CPU power and RAM into it) and install EMBA:

└─$ git clone https://github.com/e-m-b-a/emba.git
└─$ cd emba 
└─$ sudo ./installer.sh -d

This will install all pre-requisites, including the docker base image and the CVE database, which will need some bandwith, harddrive space and time.

Afterwards, you are ready to analyse your first firmware with EMBA:

└─$ sudo ./emba -l ~/log -f ~/firmware -p ./scan-profiles/quick-scan.emba

For updating your oudated EMBA installation, please check the update section in our wiki.


What's Changed

New Contributors

Full Changelog: v1.5.0-SBOMdorado...v1.5.1-rise-from-the-dead

EMBA v1.5.0 - SBOMdorado

22 Oct 11:07
c531641

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The main goal of EMBA was always to get an accurate real life overview of the threats of a firmware image. While a few years ago the target audience were only pentesters, in today’s EMBA world also software developers, product owners and product security teams are using her to achieve different goals.

Over the time EMBA is grown and today she is not only a firmware analyzer anymore. Nowadays, EMBA is used to test every little piece of unknown binary. While the main interest stays on analyzing Linux based firmware, we have seen that EMBA is also used for UEFI, Windows binaries, Linux binaries, different Scripts, Android APKs and a lot of other stuff. Beside the high fragmentation of the targets under test, we have seen a growing demand for SBOM generation. EMBA includes some kind of basic SBOM support for ages, but as most of our analyzed binaries do not rely on some kind of package managers, we have not seen the demand for supporting them on a broad base - until today.

We have now adjusted our approach to support a broad range of package managers, packet types and further sources for getting an accurate SBOM out of every testing candidate.

Beside our binary analysis mechanism as the only source of truth, EMBA is now able to extract further details from the following sources:

  • Binaries and libraries
  • Linux Kernel
  • Kernel modules
  • Linux distribution identification
  • RPM package management system
  • Debian package management system
  • OpenWRT Package management system
  • Python PIP package management system
  • Python requirements files
  • RPM packages
  • DEB packages
  • FreeBSD pkg packages
  • Java archives
  • Alpine APK
  • Python poetry
  • Python wheel
  • Rust (cargo.lock)
  • Ruby (gem)
  • JavaScript - npm
  • Windows binary exif data
  • Windows binary extraction and analysis

Further details can be found in our wiki

Additionally, we did something more:

  • FLOSS interview - check it out here
  • Ubuntu 24.04 LTS support
  • Switching from docker-compose to docker compose
  • Bug fixing
  • Refactoring
  • Docker base image updates

Beside your ongoing support with feedback, testing, working on issues and spreading EMBA you can now also support EMBA as a sponsor.
image

A big kudos goes to to offchain-audit for his sponsoring and to n0x08 for his ongoing support.

Check it out here and start being an essential part of the future of EMBA


It is always a pleasure to welcome new contributors to EMBA. This time we can welcome:


Now, start your fresh Kali Linux (put enough CPU power and RAM into it) and install EMBA:

└─$ git clone https://github.com/e-m-b-a/emba.git
└─$ cd emba 
└─$ sudo ./installer.sh -d

This will install all pre-requisites, including the docker base image and the cve database, which will need some bandwith, harddrive space and time.

Afterwards, you are ready to analyse your first firmware with EMBA:

└─$ sudo ./emba -l ~/log -f ~/firmware -p ./scan-profiles/quick-scan.emba

What's Changed

  • #1073 by @m-1-k-3 in #1076
  • restart EMBA functionality by @m-1-k-3 in #1078
  • make the quick mode quick by @m-1-k-3 in #1081
  • Make the updater work again by @m-1-k-3 in #1082
  • fix hardening log for s16 by @m-1-k-3 in #1084
  • Quick version identifier update by @github-actions in #1089
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1087
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1088
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1090
  • Packetstorm database update by @github-actions in #1091
  • fix day cnt by @m-1-k-3 in #1085
  • fix for Spurious linux_kernel CVEs, cpe string handling by @m-1-k-3 in #1086
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1094
  • full names and working tagging for packetstorm script by @HoxhaEndri in #1061
  • add md5sum to binaries by @m-1-k-3 in #1096
  • installer srecord by @m-1-k-3 in #1097
  • Firmware/binary handling again by @m-1-k-3 in #1099
  • little fixes by @m-1-k-3 in #1102
  • Quick version identifier update by @github-actions in #1105
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1104
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1103
  • Packetstorm database update by @github-actions in #1107
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1106
  • Packetstorm database update by @github-actions in #1113
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1111
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1110
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1112
  • xz backdoor detection - CVE-2024-3094 by @m-1-k-3 in #1114
  • FIRST EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) integration by @m-1-k-3 in #1109
  • Workflow docker builder updates by @m-1-k-3 in #1115
  • Remove Arachni / refactoring by @m-1-k-3 in #1117
  • Packetstorm database update by @github-actions in #1122
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1120
  • csv issues #1116 by @m-1-k-3 in #1118
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1119
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1121
  • csv issues #1116 by @m-1-k-3 in #1123
  • f10 csv fix by @m-1-k-3 in #1124
  • Vars check by @m-1-k-3 in #1126
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1128
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1129
  • Packetstorm database update by @github-actions in #1131
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1130
  • further vars cleanup, kev in f20 by @m-1-k-3 in #1127
  • var cleanup, status_bar fix by @m-1-k-3 in #1132
  • S36 updates, l10 fixes by @m-1-k-3 in #1133
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1135
  • Packetstorm database update by @github-actions in #1137
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1134
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1136
  • Emulation updates by @m-1-k-3 in #1140
  • Packetstorm database update by @github-actions in #1144
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1142
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1141
  • s115 qemu command output by @m-1-k-3 in #1145
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1143
  • Packetstorm database update by @github-actions in #1149
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1147
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1146
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1148
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1151
  • Packetstorm database update by @github-actions in #1153
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1152
  • Version string fixes for isc:dhcp and gnu:glibc by @gluesmith2021 in #1150
  • Update default-scan-no-notify.emba by @BenediktMKuehne in https://g...
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EMBA v1.4.2-Summertime

09 Aug 07:39
69c72b1

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image

This release includes one new module as well as a huge amount of little updates, bug fixes and refactoring for your smooth summer time:


Now, start your fresh Kali Linux (put enough CPU power and RAM into it) and install EMBA:

└─$ git clone https://github.com/e-m-b-a/emba.git
└─$ cd emba 
└─$ sudo ./installer.sh -d

This will install all pre-requisites, including the docker base image and the cve database, which will need some bandwith, harddrive space and time.

Afterwards, you are ready to analyse your first firmware with EMBA:

└─$ sudo ./emba -l ~/log -f ~/firmware -p ./scan-profiles/quick-scan.emba

Beside your ongoing support with feedback, testing, working on issues and spreading EMBA you can now also support EMBA as a sponsor.
image
Check it out here and start being an essential part of the future of EMBA


It is always a pleasure to welcome new contributors to EMBA. This time we can welcome:

What's Changed

New Contributors

Full Changelog: 1.4.1-white-rabbit...1.4.2-Summertime

EMBA v1.4.1 - Follow the white rabbit

17 Jun 12:28
ce738a1

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Probably you all know that it is the 25th anniversary of the legendary Matrix movie! With the latest release EMBA got massive improvements in building the Matrix via emulation.

image

This release reflects the recent updates in our system emulation engine.

Short summary of the latest highlights:

  • We started rebuilding and upgrading the toolchain of the system emulation engine - With the current work in place we can further update the outdated FirmAE and firmadyne environment which our emulation engine is originally based on
  • Linux kernel upgraded from version 4.1.17 (the original firmadyne and FirmAE version) to version 4.1.52 - The original firmadyne kernel is from 01/2016 and a bit rusty. With the update to 4.1.52 (which is from 05/2018) we moved forward in time for more than 2 years. In the future we plan further updates to include more modern kernels.
  • Busybox updated from 1.29.3 to the current version 1.36.1
  • Multiple libnvram patches were merged from the rehosting repo of libnvram which is maintained primarly by @AndrewFasano
  • Including an optional netcat listener to the system emulation engine
  • Further debugging possibilities via strace, gdb and gdbserver added to the system emulation engine
  • Handling of time64/time32 support in firmware via updated musl libc for libnvram - This hopefully results in an improved handling on more modern firmware
  • Improved environment for ARM64 and MIPS64 architecture
  • FIRST EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) integration - see #1109
  • Updated docker base image to Kali 2024-2
  • @gluesmith2021 fixed multiple bugs in our version detection and CVE engine - see here

Now, start your fresh Kali Linux (put enough CPU power and RAM into it) and install EMBA:

└─$ git clone https://github.com/e-m-b-a/emba.git
└─$ cd emba 
└─$ sudo ./installer.sh -d

This will install all pre-requisites, including the docker base image and the cve database, which will need some bandwith, harddrive space and time.

Afterwards, you are ready to analyse your first firmware with EMBA:

└─$ sudo ./emba -l ~/log -f ~/firmware -p ./scan-profiles/quick-scan.emba

Beside your ongoing support with feedback, testing, working on issues and spreading EMBA you can now also support EMBA as a sponsor.
image
Check it out here and start being an essential part of the future of EMBA


It is always a pleasure to welcome new contributors to EMBA. This time we can welcome:

What's Changed

  • #1073 by @m-1-k-3 in #1076
  • restart EMBA functionality by @m-1-k-3 in #1078
  • make the quick mode quick by @m-1-k-3 in #1081
  • Make the updater work again by @m-1-k-3 in #1082
  • fix hardening log for s16 by @m-1-k-3 in #1084
  • Quick version identifier update by @github-actions in #1089
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1087
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1088
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1090
  • Packetstorm database update by @github-actions in #1091
  • fix day cnt by @m-1-k-3 in #1085
  • fix for Spurious linux_kernel CVEs, cpe string handling by @m-1-k-3 in #1086
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1094
  • full names and working tagging for packetstorm script by @HoxhaEndri in #1061
  • add md5sum to binaries by @m-1-k-3 in #1096
  • installer srecord by @m-1-k-3 in #1097
  • Firmware/binary handling again by @m-1-k-3 in #1099
  • little fixes by @m-1-k-3 in #1102
  • Quick version identifier update by @github-actions in #1105
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1104
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1103
  • Packetstorm database update by @github-actions in #1107
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1106
  • Packetstorm database update by @github-actions in #1113
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1111
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1110
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1112
  • xz backdoor detection - CVE-2024-3094 by @m-1-k-3 in #1114
  • FIRST EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) integration by @m-1-k-3 in #1109
  • Workflow docker builder updates by @m-1-k-3 in #1115
  • Remove Arachni / refactoring by @m-1-k-3 in #1117
  • Packetstorm database update by @github-actions in #1122
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1120
  • csv issues #1116 by @m-1-k-3 in #1118
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1119
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1121
  • csv issues #1116 by @m-1-k-3 in #1123
  • f10 csv fix by @m-1-k-3 in #1124
  • Vars check by @m-1-k-3 in #1126
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1128
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1129
  • Packetstorm database update by @github-actions in #1131
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1130
  • further vars cleanup, kev in f20 by @m-1-k-3 in #1127
  • var cleanup, status_bar fix by @m-1-k-3 in #1132
  • S36 updates, l10 fixes by @m-1-k-3 in #1133
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1135
  • Packetstorm database update by @github-actions in #1137
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1134
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1136
  • Emulation updates by @m-1-k-3 in #1140
  • Packetstorm database update by @github-actions in #1144
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1142
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1141
  • s115 qemu command output by @m-1-k-3 in #1145
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1143
  • Packetstorm database update by @github-actions in #1149
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1147
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1146
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1148
  • Metasploit database update by @github-actions in #1151
  • Packetstorm database update by @github-actions in #1153
  • Snyk database update by @github-actions in #1152
  • Version string fixes for isc:dhcp and gnu:glibc by @gluesmith2021 in #1150
  • Update default-scan-no-notify.emba by @BenediktMKuehne in #1156
  • Packetstorm database update by @github-actions in #1161
  • Quick version identifier update by @github-actions in #1160
  • CISA known exploited database update by @github-actions in #1158
  • fix zlib (unzip) version string by @gluesmith2021 in #1164
  • JTR hash sorting by @BenediktMKuehne in https://github.com/...
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EMBA v1.4.0 - ICS testing Edt.

05 Mar 10:04
c98898e

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As we do a lot of ICS/OT testing in our daily business, we thought this release should reflect our usual EMBA usage scenario. Welcome to another huge EMBA release with a lot new features: EMBA v1.4.0 - ICS testing Editition

image

This time we have collected the following highlights for you:

  • less bugs -> more code -> more bugs? -> report all our bugs here
  • Extended binary analysis via semgrep (see module s16)
  • New static perl analysis via zarn (see module s27)
  • Toolchain identification (see wiki)
  • Improved update checking (see wiki)
  • New scan interface (with integrated status bar) automatically enabled in most scan-profiles
  • Improved multiple backend workflows
  • Massive speedup of multiple EMBA modules (see #1006 / #996)
  • Updated docker base image (see wiki)
  • You can get in contact with us on the following social networks: X / Mastodon / NEW: Bluesky
  • We can meet in real life at BlackHat Asia this year (see Arsenal schedule)
  • Special thanks to our awesome community for releasing multiple new articles around EMBA - see our dedicated section in the wiki

Now, start your fresh Kali Linux (put enough CPU power and RAM into it) and install EMBA:

└─$ git clone https://github.com/e-m-b-a/emba.git
└─$ cd emba 
└─$ sudo ./installer.sh -d

This will install all pre-requisites, including the docker base image and the cve database, which will need some bandwith, harddrive space and time.

Afterwards, you are ready to analyse your first firmware with EMBA:

└─$ sudo ./emba -l ~/log -f ~/firmware -p ./scan-profiles/quick-scan.emba

Beside your ongoing support with feedback, testing, working on issues and spreading EMBA you can now also support EMBA as a sponsor.
image
Check it out here and start being an essential part of the future of EMBA


It is always a pleasure to welcome new contributors to EMBA. This time we can welcome:

Welcome to the EMBA firmware analysis environment and thank you for your valuable contribution.


What's Changed

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EMBA v1.3.2 - EMBArk is out

12 Dec 13:07
04a97e1

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The last EMBA release is not too long ago but in the mean time there was so much going on ... The most important thing is ...


The first official EMBArk release is out now!

Everything started as an idea in the beginning of 2021. The idea was to build an enterprise ready open source firmware analysis environment on top of EMBA. This environment should allow every product security team as well as every penetration tester and security researcher to use professional firmware analysis to improve the security of IoT/OT/ICS ... (you name it) devices as easy as possible. This idea was mixed up to an AMOS research project, where a team of students built a first PoC of EMBArk. You can find the original project here. From there on continuous work, improvement and testing was running more or less under the radar. Until today ... EMBArk is stable and ready for more! Kudos to @BenediktMKuehne for pushing it to the next level.


Say hi to our centralized firmware security analysis environment EMBArk! Check it out here, use it, give us feedback or improve it and start being part of this open source environment.


On EMBA side we have some "bumpy" weeks in the neck:

  • As the NIST API is currently changing and we had some serious issues with our cve-search integration we decided to rewrite it by ourself. This process took us some time to get the CVE identification feature fully working again. Thanks for all your testing and feedback during this process. With the new integration EMBA is faster, more stable and the installation is not that error prone anymore.
  • UEFI analysis integration was massively improved - see here
  • A lot of code cleanup was done by @HoxhaEndri
  • A new update check functionality by @HoxhaEndri
  • Improved firmware diffing environment - see here
  • Updated and new reporting templates by @413x8
  • Your great feedback is now collected in our wiki
  • Further public online resources are available and collected here
  • New support possibilities via patreon or buymeacoffee

Thank you for all your feedback and your testing since version 1.3.1!

It is always a pleasure to welcome new contributors to EMBA. This time we can welcome two of them:

Welcome to the EMBA environment and thank you for your valuable contribution.


We are looking for (release) sponsors here


What's Changed

New Contributors

  • @413x8 made their first contribution in h...
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EMBA v1.3.1 - Diff it

01 Nov 14:06
42ed908

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What happened since the last EMBA release?

There was the absolute great #Hackersummercamp with our talks at BSidesLV, ICS Village (DEF CON) and Black Hat (Arsenal). The recording of the BSides talk is already available here. Beside this, Nate did a really great talk at BruCON – see here.

Beside a lot of code cleanup, bug fixing and some little improvements the new firmware diffing mode is one of the highlights in version 1.3.1.
In 1 day bug hunting, exploit development and the identification of silent patching it is quite common to identify the differences between two firmware releases.
To use this new feature (as usual in a very early alpha state) it is now possible to define a second firmware with the -o parameter. EMBA starts with some basic analysis of both firmware images, extracts both images and finds the differences between these firmware images:

image

If the file is some ASCII file a nice diff is shown:

image

If the file is a binary file we use radare2 for further analysis:

image

For further details check our Wiki

Happy bug hunting :)


Beside your ongoing support with feedback, testing, working on issues and spreading EMBA you can now also support EMBA as a sponsor.
image
Check it out here and start being an essential part of the future of EMBA


What's Changed

Full Changelog: 1.3.0-AI-for-EMBA...1.3.1-diff-all-the-firmwares

EMBA v1.3.0 - AI-Assisted Firmware Analysis

25 Jul 09:49
8bcb671

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Q: Can we use AI for firmware analysis?
A: Sure, let's do it! EMBA now supports AI-assisted firmware analysis.

Again, we rise the bar in the field of Open-Source firmware security analysis. After establishing user-mode emulation or system emulation this time we moved to AI-assisted firmware analysis. More details about our AI integration are available in our Wiki


#Hackersummercamp ahead!
We got the amazing opportunity to show EMBA at the BSides conference in Las Vegas. The schedule is available here.

Additionally, you will find us with a live EMBA demo at Black Hat Arsenal

See you all in Vegas


Beside your ongoing support with feedback, testing, working on issues and spreading EMBA you can now also support EMBA as a sponsor.

image

Check it out here and start being an essential part of the future of EMBA


What's Changed

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