So I learned that if a MicroSD card gets snapped in half, its unrecoverable.
Okay, so suppose you were in war, and enemy soldiers were about to raid you. You just snap the cards in half and the data is un-recoverable, right?
So I learned that if a MicroSD card gets snapped in half, its unrecoverable.
Okay, so suppose you were in war, and enemy soldiers were about to raid you. You just snap the cards in half and the data is un-recoverable, right?
This does not appear to be correct.
That’s a consumer data recovery company. They aren’t going to use an electron microscope like a nation state, university, or dedicated emulation hacker.
https://www.pentestpartners.com/security-blog/how-to-read-from-an-eeprom/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312551555_Reverse_engineering_Flash_EEPROM_memories_using_Scanning_Electron_Microscopy
https://benjamin.computer/posts/2018-04-05-rom-reading.html
The first two links that you posted don’t appear to cover electron microscopy at all. The last appears to show a potential method of attack–which is noted in the link that I posted–but does not seem to show that it’s actually been successfully implemented. (“Using SEM operator-free acquisition and standard image processing technique we demonstrate the possible [emphasis added] automating of such technique over a full memory. […] The technique is a first step [emphasis added] for reverse engineering secure embedded systems.”)
Sorry the first link was wrong but the second link showed was a research paper showed them doing it.
Just google electron microscope eeprom and you will find hundreds of documents on the procedure. The second link I provided wasn’t theoretical. It showed it actually being done.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312551555_Reverse_engineering_Flash_EEPROM_memories_using_Scanning_Electron_Microscopy “All those parameters allowed us to obtain clear differences between ‘0’ and ‘1’ states as seen in Figure 4. It has to be noted that this image is obtained without additional image processing to highlight differences between ‘0’ and ‘1’ states.”
"demonstrate the possible [emphasis added] automating "
It doesn’t say it isn’t possible but that they have a possible way of AUTOMATING it. That is instead of someone looking at the image and reading off the bits into bytes, they could take the image output the data without human intervention.
This article is focused on reading them electrically.
I too have heard you can read flash storage with electron microscopes.