Reverse Engineering Yaesu FT-70D Firmware Encryption

Original text by landaire

This article dives into my full methodology for reverse engineering the tool mentioned in this article. It’s a bit longer but is intended to be accessible to folks who aren’t necessarily advanced reverse-engineers.

Background

Ham radios are a fun way of learning how the radio spectrum works, and more importantly: they’re embedded devices that may run weird chips/firmware! I got curious how easy it’d be to hack my Yaesu FT-70D, so I started doing some research. The only existing resource I could find for Yaesu radios was someone who posted about custom firmware for their Yaesu FT1DR.

The Reddit poster mentioned that if you go through the firmware update process via USB, the radio exposes its Renesas H8SX microcontroller and can have its flash modified using the Renesas SDK. This was a great start and looked promising, but the SDK wasn’t trivial to configure and I wasn’t sure if it could even dump the firmware… so I didn’t use it for very long.

Other Avenues

Yaesu provides a Windows application on their website that can be used to update a radio’s firmware over USB:

The zip contains the following files:

1.2 MB  Wed Nov  8 14:34:38 2017  FT-70D_ver111(USA).exe
682 KB  Tue Nov 14 00:00:00 2017  FT-70DR_DE_Firmware_Update_Information_ENG_1711-B.pdf
8 MB  Mon Apr 23 00:00:00 2018  FT-70DR_DE_MAIN_Firmware_Ver_Up_Manual_ENG_1804-B.pdf
3.2 MB  Fri Jan  6 17:54:44 2012  HMSEUSBDRIVER.exe
160 KB  Sat Sep 17 15:14:16 2011  RComms.dll
61 KB  Tue Oct 23 17:02:08 2012  RFP_USB_VB.dll
1.7 MB  Fri Mar 29 11:54:02 2013  vcredist_x86.exe

I’m going to assume that the file specific to the FT-70D, «FT-70D_ver111(USA).exe», will likely contain our firmware image. A PE file (.exe) can contain binary resources in the 

.rsrc
 section — let’s see what this file contains using XPEViewer:

Resources fit into one of many different resource types, but a firmware image would likely be put into a custom type. What’s this last entry, «23»? Expanding that node we have a couple of interesting items:

RES_START_DIALOG
 is a custom string the updater shows when preparing an update, so we’re in the right area!

RES_UPDATE_INFO
 looks like just binary data — perhaps this is our firmware image? Unfortunately looking at the «Strings» tab in XPEViewer or running the 
strings
 utility over this data doesn’t yield anything legible. The firmware image is likely encrypted.

Reverse Engineering the Binary

Let’s load the update utility into our disassembler of choice to figure out how the data is encrypted. I’ll be using IDA Pro, but Ghidra (free!), radare2 (free!), or Binary Ninja are all great alternatives. Where possible in this article I’ll try to show my rewritten code in C since it’ll be a closer match to the decompiler and machine code output.

A good starting point is the the string we saw above, 

RES_UPDATE_INFO
. Windows applications load resources by calling one of the 
FindResource*
 APIs
FindResourceA
 has the following parameters:

  1. HMODULE
    , a handle to the module to look for the resource in.
  2. lpName
    , the resource name.
  3. lpType
    , the resource type.

In our disassembler we can find references to the 

RES_UPDATE_INFO
 string and look for calls to 
FindResourceA
 with this string as an argument in the 
lpName
 position.

We find a match in a function which happens to find/load all of these custom resources under type 

23
.

We know where the data is loaded by the application, so now we need to see how it’s used. Doing static analysis from this point may be more work than it’s worth if the data isn’t operated on immediately. To speed things up I’m going to use a debugger’s assistance. I used WinDbg’s Time Travel Debugging to record an execution trace of the updater while it updates my radio. TTD is an invaluable tool and I’d highly recommend using it when possible. rr is an alternative for non-Windows platforms.

The decompiler output shows this function copies the 

RES_UPDATE_INFO
 resource to a dynamically allocated buffer. The 
qmemcpy()
 is inlined and represented by a 
rep movsd
 instruction in the disassembly, so we need to break at this instruction and examine the 
edi
 register’s (destination address) value. I set a breakpoint by typing 
bp 0x406968
 in the command window, allow the application to continue running, and when it breaks we can see the 
edi
 register value is 
0x2be5020
. We can now set a memory access breakpoint at this address using 
ba r4 0x2be5020
 to break whenever this data is read.

Our breakpoint is hit at 

0x4047DC
 — back to the disassembler. In IDA you can press 
G
 and enter this address to jump to it. We’re finally at what looks like the data processing function:

We broke when dereferencing 

v2
 and IDA has automatically named the variable it’s being assigned to as 
Time
. The 
Time
 variable is passed to another function which formats it as a string with 
%Y%m%d%H%M%S
. Let’s clean up the variables to reflect what we know:

bool __thiscall sub_4047B0(char *this)
{
  char *encrypted_data; // esi
  BOOL v3; // ebx
  char *v4; // eax
  char *time_string; // [esp+Ch] [ebp-320h] BYREF
  int v7; // [esp+10h] [ebp-31Ch] BYREF
  __time64_t Time; // [esp+14h] [ebp-318h] BYREF
  int (__thiscall **v9)(void *, char); // [esp+1Ch] [ebp-310h]
  int v10; // [esp+328h] [ebp-4h]

  // rename v2 to encrypted_data
  encrypted_data = *(char **)(*((_DWORD *)AfxGetModuleState() + 1) + 160);
  Time = *(int *)encrypted_data;
  // rename this function and its 2nd parameter
  format_timestamp(&Time, (int)&time_string, "%Y%m%d%H%M%S");
  v10 = 1;
  v7 = 0;
  v9 = off_4244A0;
  sub_4082C0(time_string);
  v3 = sub_408350(encrypted_data + 4, 0x100000, this + 92, 0x100000, &v7) == 0;
  v4 = time_string - 16;
  v9 = off_4244A0;
  v10 = -1;
  if ( _InterlockedDecrement((volatile signed __int32 *)time_string - 1) <= 0 )
    (*(void (__stdcall **)(char *))(**(_DWORD **)v4 + 4))(v4);
  return v3;
}

The timestamp string is passed to 

sub_4082c0
 on line 20 and the remainder of the update image is passed to 
sub_408350
 on line 21. I’m going to focus on 
sub_408350
 since I only care about the firmware data right now and based on how this function is called I’d wager its signature is something like:

status_t sub_408350(uint8_t *input, size_t input_len, uint8_t *output, output_len, size_t *out_data_processed);

Let’s see what it does:

int __stdcall sub_408350(char *a1, int a2, int a3, int a4, _DWORD *a5)
{
  int v5; // edx
  int v7; // ebp
  int v8; // esi
  unsigned int i; // ecx
  char v10; // al
  char *v11; // eax
  int v13; // [esp+10h] [ebp-54h]
  char v14[64]; // [esp+20h] [ebp-44h] BYREF

  v5 = a2;
  v7 = 0;
  memset(v14, 0, sizeof(v14));
  if ( a2 <= 0 )
  {
LABEL_13:
    *a5 = v7;
    return 0;
  }
  else
  {
    while ( 1 )
    {
      v8 = v5;
      if ( v5 >= 8 )
        v8 = 8;
      v13 = v5 - v8;
      for ( i = 0; i < 0x40; i += 8 )
      {
        v10 = *a1;
        v14[i] = (unsigned __int8)*a1 >> 7;
        v14[i + 1] = (v10 & 0x40) != 0;
        v14[i + 2] = (v10 & 0x20) != 0;
        v14[i + 3] = (v10 & 0x10) != 0;
        v14[i + 4] = (v10 & 8) != 0;
        v14[i + 5] = (v10 & 4) != 0;
        v14[i + 6] = (v10 & 2) != 0;
        v14[i + 7] = v10 & 1;
        ++a1;
      }
      sub_407980(v14, 0);
      if ( v8 )
        break;
LABEL_12:
      if ( v13 <= 0 )
        goto LABEL_13;
      v5 = v13;
    }
    v11 = &v14[1];
    while ( 1 )
    {
      --v8;
      if ( v7 >= a4 )
        return -101;
      *(_BYTE *)(a3 + v7++) = v11[6] | (2
                                      * (v11[5] | (2
                                                 * (v11[4] | (2
                                                            * (v11[3] | (2
                                                                       * (v11[2] | (2
                                                                                  * (v11[1] | (2
                                                                                             * (*v11 | (2 * *(v11 - 1))))))))))))));
      v11 += 8;
      if ( !v8 )
        goto LABEL_12;
    }
  }
}

I think we’ve found our function that starts decrypting the firmware! To confirm, we want to see what the 

output
 parameter’s data looks like before and after this function is called. I set a breakpoint in the debugger at the address where it’s called (
bp 0x404842
) and put the value of the 
edi
 register (
0x2d7507c
) in WinDbg’s memory window.

Here’s the data before:

After stepping over the function call:

We can dump this data to a file using the following command:

.writemem C:\users\lander\documents\maybe_deobfuscated.bin 0x2d7507c L100000

010 Editor has a built-in strings utility (Search > Find Strings…) and if we scroll down a bit in the results, we have real strings that appear in my radio!

At this point if we were just interested in getting the plaintext firmware we could stop messing with the binary and load the firmware into IDA Pro… but I want to know how this encryption works.

Encryption Details

Just to recap from the last section:

  • We’ve identified our data processing routine (let’s call this function 
    decrypt_update_info
    ).
  • We know that the first 4 bytes of the update data are a Unix timestamp that’s formatted as a string and used for an unknown purpose.
  • We know which function begins decrypting our firmware image.

Data Decryption

Let’s look at the firmware image decryption routine with some renamed variables:

int __thiscall decrypt_data(
        void *this,
        char *encrypted_data,
        int encrypted_data_len,
        char *output_data,
        int output_data_len,
        _DWORD *bytes_written)
{
  int data_len; // edx
  int output_index; // ebp
  int block_size; // esi
  unsigned int i; // ecx
  char encrypted_byte; // al
  char *idata; // eax
  int remaining_data; // [esp+10h] [ebp-54h]
  char inflated_data[64]; // [esp+20h] [ebp-44h] BYREF

  data_len = encrypted_data_len;
  output_index = 0;
  memset(inflated_data, 0, sizeof(inflated_data));
  if ( encrypted_data_len <= 0 )
  {
LABEL_13:
    *bytes_written = output_index;
    return 0;
  }
  else
  {
    while ( 1 )
    {
      block_size = data_len;
      if ( data_len >= 8 )
        block_size = 8;
      remaining_data = data_len - block_size;

      // inflate 1 byte of input data to 8 bytes of its bit representation
      for ( i = 0; i < 0x40; i += 8 )
      {
        encrypted_byte = *encrypted_data;
        inflated_data[i] = (unsigned __int8)*encrypted_data >> 7;
        inflated_data[i + 1] = (encrypted_byte & 0x40) != 0;
        inflated_data[i + 2] = (encrypted_byte & 0x20) != 0;
        inflated_data[i + 3] = (encrypted_byte & 0x10) != 0;
        inflated_data[i + 4] = (encrypted_byte & 8) != 0;
        inflated_data[i + 5] = (encrypted_byte & 4) != 0;
        inflated_data[i + 6] = (encrypted_byte & 2) != 0;
        inflated_data[i + 7] = encrypted_byte & 1;
        ++encrypted_data;
      }
      // do something with the inflated data
      sub_407980(this, inflated_data, 0);
      if ( block_size )
        break;
LABEL_12:
      if ( remaining_data <= 0 )
        goto LABEL_13;
      data_len = remaining_data;
    }
    // deflate the data back to bytes
    idata = &inflated_data[1];
    while ( 1 )
    {
      --block_size;
      if ( output_index >= output_data_len )
        return -101;
      output_data[output_index++] = idata[6] | (2
                                              * (idata[5] | (2
                                                           * (idata[4] | (2
                                                                        * (idata[3] | (2
                                                                                     * (idata[2] | (2
                                                                                                  * (idata[1] | (2 * (*idata | (2 * *(idata - 1))))))))))))));
      idata += 8;
      if ( !block_size )
        goto LABEL_12;
    }
  }
}

At a high level this routine:

  1. Allocates a 64-byte scratch buffer
  2. Checks if there’s any data to process. If not, set the output variable 
    out_data_processed
     to the number of bytes processed and return 0x0 (
    STATUS_SUCCESS
    )
  3. Loop over the input data in 8-byte chunks and inflate each byte to its bit representation.
  4. After the 8-byte chunk is inflated, call 
    sub_407980
     with the scratch buffer and 
    0
     as arguments.
  5. Loop over the scratch buffer and reassemble 8 sequential bits as 1 byte, then set the byte at the appropriate index in the output buffer.

Lots going on here, but let’s take a look at step #3. If we take the bytes 

0xAA
 and 
0x77
 which have bit representations of 
0b1010_1010
 and 
0b0111_1111
 respectively and inflate them to a 16-byte array using the algorithm above, we end up with:

| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |    | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|----|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |    | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |

This routine does this process over 8 bytes at a time and completely fills the 64-byte scratch buffer with 1s and 0s just like the table above.

Now let’s look at step #4 and see what’s going on in 

sub_407980
:

_BYTE *__thiscall sub_407980(void *this, _BYTE *a2, int a3)
{
  // long list of stack vars removed for clarity

  v3 = (int)this;
  v4 = 15;
  v5 = a3;
  v32[0] = (int)this;
  v28 = 0;
  v31 = 15;
  do
  {
    for ( i = 0; i < 48; *((_BYTE *)&v33 + i + 3) = v18 )
    {
      v7 = v28;
      if ( !v5 )
        v7 = v4;
      v8 = *(_BYTE *)(i + 48 * v7 + v3 + 4) ^ a2[(unsigned __int8)byte_424E50[i] + 31];
      v9 = v28;
      *(&v34 + i) = v8;
      if ( !v5 )
        v9 = v4;
      v10 = *(_BYTE *)(i + 48 * v9 + v3 + 5) ^ a2[(unsigned __int8)byte_424E51[i] + 31];
      v11 = v28;
      *(&v35 + i) = v10;
      if ( !v5 )
        v11 = v4;
      v12 = *(_BYTE *)(i + 48 * v11 + v3 + 6) ^ a2[(unsigned __int8)byte_424E52[i] + 31];
      v13 = v28;
      *(&v36 + i) = v12;
      if ( !v5 )
        v13 = v4;
      v14 = *(_BYTE *)(i + 48 * v13 + v3 + 7) ^ a2[(unsigned __int8)byte_424E53[i] + 31];
      v15 = v28;
      v38[i - 1] = v14;
      if ( !v5 )
        v15 = v4;
      v16 = *(_BYTE *)(i + 48 * v15 + v3 + 8) ^ a2[(unsigned __int8)byte_424E54[i] + 31];
      v17 = v28;
      v38[i] = v16;
      if ( !v5 )
        v17 = v4;
      v18 = *(_BYTE *)(i + 48 * v17 + v3 + 9) ^ a2[(unsigned __int8)byte_424E55[i] + 31];
      i += 6;
    }
    v32[1] = *(int *)((char *)&dword_424E80
                    + (((unsigned __int8)v38[0] + 2) | (32 * v34 + 2) | (16 * (unsigned __int8)v38[1] + 2) | (8 * v35 + 2) | (4 * v36 + 2) | (2 * v37 + 2)));
    v32[2] = *(int *)((char *)&dword_424F80
                    + (((unsigned __int8)v38[6] + 2) | (32 * (unsigned __int8)v38[2] + 2) | (16
                                                                                           * (unsigned __int8)v38[7]
                                                                                           + 2) | (8
                                                                                                 * (unsigned __int8)v38[3]
                                                                                                 + 2) | (4 * (unsigned __int8)v38[4] + 2) | (2 * (unsigned __int8)v38[5] + 2)));
    v32[3] = *(int *)((char *)&dword_425080
                    + (((unsigned __int8)v38[12] + 2) | (32 * (unsigned __int8)v38[8] + 2) | (16
                                                                                            * (unsigned __int8)v38[13]
                                                                                            + 2) | (8 * (unsigned __int8)v38[9]
                                                                                                  + 2) | (4 * (unsigned __int8)v38[10] + 2) | (2 * (unsigned __int8)v38[11] + 2)));
    v32[4] = *(int *)((char *)&dword_425180
                    + (((unsigned __int8)v38[18] + 2) | (32 * (unsigned __int8)v38[14] + 2) | (16
                                                                                             * (unsigned __int8)v38[19]
                                                                                             + 2) | (8 * (unsigned __int8)v38[15] + 2) | (4 * (unsigned __int8)v38[16] + 2) | (2 * (unsigned __int8)v38[17] + 2)));
    v32[5] = *(int *)((char *)&dword_425280
                    + (((unsigned __int8)v38[24] + 2) | (32 * (unsigned __int8)v38[20] + 2) | (16
                                                                                             * (unsigned __int8)v38[25]
                                                                                             + 2) | (8 * (unsigned __int8)v38[21] + 2) | (4 * (unsigned __int8)v38[22] + 2) | (2 * (unsigned __int8)v38[23] + 2)));
    v32[6] = *(int *)((char *)&dword_425380
                    + (((unsigned __int8)v38[30] + 2) | (32 * (unsigned __int8)v38[26] + 2) | (16
                                                                                             * (unsigned __int8)v38[31]
                                                                                             + 2) | (8 * (unsigned __int8)v38[27] + 2) | (4 * (unsigned __int8)v38[28] + 2) | (2 * (unsigned __int8)v38[29] + 2)));
    v32[7] = *(int *)((char *)&dword_425480
                    + (((unsigned __int8)v38[36] + 2) | (32 * (unsigned __int8)v38[32] + 2) | (16
                                                                                             * (unsigned __int8)v38[37]
                                                                                             + 2) | (8 * (unsigned __int8)v38[33] + 2) | (4 * (unsigned __int8)v38[34] + 2) | (2 * (unsigned __int8)v38[35] + 2)));
    v19 = (char *)(&unk_425681 - (_UNKNOWN *)a2);
    v20 = &unk_425680 - (_UNKNOWN *)a2;
    v33 = *(int *)((char *)&dword_425580
                 + (((unsigned __int8)v38[42] + 2) | (32 * (unsigned __int8)v38[38] + 2) | (16
                                                                                          * (unsigned __int8)v38[43]
                                                                                          + 2) | (8
                                                                                                * (unsigned __int8)v38[39]
                                                                                                + 2) | (4 * (unsigned __int8)v38[40] + 2) | (2 * (unsigned __int8)v38[41] + 2)));
    result = a2;
    if ( v4 <= 0 )
    {
      v30 = 8;
      do
      {
        *result ^= *((_BYTE *)v32 + (unsigned __int8)result[v20] + 3);
        result[1] ^= *((_BYTE *)v32 + (unsigned __int8)v19[(_DWORD)result] + 3);
        result[2] ^= *((_BYTE *)v32 + (unsigned __int8)result[&unk_425682 - (_UNKNOWN *)a2] + 3);
        result[3] ^= *((_BYTE *)v32 + (unsigned __int8)result[byte_425683 - a2] + 3);
        result += 4;
        --v30;
      }
      while ( v30 );
    }
    else
    {
      v29 = 8;
      do
      {
        v24 = result[32];
        v22 = *result ^ *((_BYTE *)v32 + (unsigned __int8)result[v20] + 3);
        result += 4;
        result[28] = v22;
        *(result - 4) = v24;
        v25 = result[29];
        result[29] = *(result - 3) ^ *((_BYTE *)v32 + (unsigned __int8)result[(_DWORD)v19 - 4] + 3);
        *(result - 3) = v25;
        v26 = result[30];
        result[30] = *(result - 2) ^ *((_BYTE *)v32 + (unsigned __int8)result[&unk_425682 - (_UNKNOWN *)a2 - 4] + 3);
        *(result - 2) = v26;
        v27 = result[31];
        result[31] = *(result - 1) ^ *((_BYTE *)v32 + (unsigned __int8)result[byte_425683 - a2 - 4] + 3);
        *(result - 1) = v27;
        --v29;
      }
      while ( v29 );
    }
    v5 = a3;
    v3 = v32[0];
    v4 = v31 - 1;
    v23 = v31 - 1 <= -1;
    ++v28;
    --v31;
  }
  while ( !v23 );
  return result;
}

Oof. This is substantially more complicated but looks like the meat of the decryption algorithm. We’ll refer to this function, 

sub_407980
, as 
decrypt_data
 from here on out. We can see what may be an immediate roadblock: this function takes in a C++ 
this
 pointer (line 5) and performs bitwise operations on one of its members (line 18, 23, etc.). For now let’s call this class member 
key
 and come back to it later.

This function is the perfect example of decompilers emitting less than ideal code as a result of compiler optimizations/code reordering. For me, TTD was essential for following how data flows through this function. It took a few hours of banging my head against IDA and WinDbg to understand, but this function can be broken up into 3 high-level phases:

  1. Building a 48-byte buffer containing our key material XOR’d with data from a static table.
int v33;
  unsigned __int8 v34; // [esp+44h] [ebp-34h]
  unsigned __int8 v35; // [esp+45h] [ebp-33h]
  unsigned __int8 v36; // [esp+46h] [ebp-32h]
  unsigned __int8 v37; // [esp+47h] [ebp-31h]
  char v38[44]; // [esp+48h] [ebp-30h]

  v3 = (int)this;
  v4 = 15;
  v5 = a3;
  v32[0] = (int)this;
  v28 = 0;
  v31 = 15;
  do
  {
    // The end statement of this loop is strange -- it's writing a byte somewhere? come back
    // to this later
    for ( i = 0; i < 48; *((_BYTE *)&v33 + i + 3) = v18 )
    {
    // v28 Starts at 0 but is incremented by 1 during each iteration of the outer `while` loop
      v7 = v28;
      // v5 is our last argument which was 0
      if ( !v5 )
        // overwrite v7 with v4, which begins at 15 but is decremented by 1 during each iteration
        // of the outer `while` loop
        v7 = v4;
      // left-hand side of the xor, *(_BYTE *)(i + 48 * v7 + v3 + 4)
      //     v3 in this context is our `this` pointer + 4, giving us *(_BYTE *)(i + (48 * v7) + this->maybe_key)
      //     so the left-hand side of the xor is likely indexing into our key material:
      //     this->maybe_key[i + 48 * loop_multiplier]
      //
      // right-hand side of the xor, a2[(unsigned __int8)byte_424E50[i] + 31]
      //     a2 is our input encrypted data, and byte_424E50 is some static data
      //
      // this full statement can be rewritten as:
      //     v8 = this->maybe_key[i + 48 * loop_multiplier] ^ encrypted_data[byte_424E50[i] + 31]
      v8 = *(_BYTE *)(i + 48 * v7 + v3 + 4) ^ a2[(unsigned __int8)byte_424E50[i] + 31];

      v9 = v28;

      // write the result of `key_data ^ input_data` to a scratch buffer (v34)
      // v34 looks to be declared as the wrong type. v33 is actually a 52-byte buffer
      *(&v34 + i) = v8;

      // repeat the above 5 more times
      if ( !v5 )
        v9 = v4;
      v10 = *(_BYTE *)(i + 48 * v9 + v3 + 5) ^ a2[(unsigned __int8)byte_424E51[i] + 31];
      v11 = v28;
      *(&v35 + i) = v10;

      // snip

      // v18 gets written to the scratch buffer at the end of the loop...
      v18 = *(_BYTE *)(i + 48 * v17 + v3 + 9) ^ a2[(unsigned __int8)byte_424E55[i] + 31];

      // this was probably the *real* last statement of the for-loop
      // i.e. for (int i = 0; i < 48; i += 6)
      i += 6;
    }

Build a 32-byte buffer containing data from an 0x800-byte static table, with indexes into this table originating from indices built from the buffer in step #1. Combine this 32-byte buffer with the 48-byte buffer in step #1.

// dword_424E80 -- some static data
    // (unsigned __int8)v38[0] + 2) -- the original decompiler output has this wrong.
    //     v33 should be a 52-byte buffer which consumes v38, so v38 is actually data set up in
    //     the loop above.
    // (32 * v34 + 2) -- v34 should be some data from the above loop as well. This looks like
    //     a binary shift optimization
    // repeat with different multipliers...
    //
    // This can be simplified as:
    //     size_t index  = ((v34 << 5) + 2)
    //                     | ((v37[1] << 4) + 2)
    //                     | ((v35 << 3) + 2)
    //                     | ((v36 << 2) + 2)
    //                     | ((v37 << 1) + 2)
    //                     | v38[0]
    //     v32[1] = *(int*)(((char*)&dword_424e80)[index])
    v32[1] = *(int *)((char *)&dword_424E80
                    + (((unsigned __int8)v38[0] + 2) | (32 * v34 + 2) | (16 * (unsigned __int8)v38[1] + 2) | (8 * v35 + 2) | (4 * v36 + 2) | (2 * v37 + 2)));
    // repeat 7 times. each time the reference to dword_424e80 is shifted forward by 0x100.
    // note: if you do the math, the next line uses dword_424e80[64]. We shift by 0x100 instead of
    // 64 because is misleading because dword_424e80 is declared as an int array -- not a char array.

Iterate over the next 8 bytes of the output buffer. For each byte index of the output buffer, index into yet another static 32-byte buffer and use that as the index into the table from step #2. XOR this value with the value at the current index of the output buffer.

// Not really sure why this calculation works like this. It ends up just being `unk_425681`'s address
// when it's used.
    v19 = (char *)(&unk_425681 - (_UNKNOWN *)a2);
    v20 = &unk_425680 - (_UNKNOWN *)a2;

// v4 is a number that's decremented on every iteration -- possibly bytes remaining?
    if ( v4 <= 0 )
    {
        // Loop over 8 bytes
      v30 = 8;
      do
      {
        // Start XORing the output bytes with some of the data generated in step 2.
        //
        // Cheating here and doing the "draw the rest of the owl", but if you observe that
        // we use `unk_425680` (v20), `unk_425681` (v19), `unk_425682`, and byte_425683, the
        // the decompiler generated suboptimal code. We can simplify to be relative to just
        // `unk_425680`
        //
        // *result ^= step2_bytes[unk_425680[output_index] - 1]
        *result ^= *((_BYTE *)v32 + (unsigned __int8)result[v20] + 3);

        // result[1] ^= step2_bytes[unk_425680[output_index] + 1]
        result[1] ^= *((_BYTE *)v32 + (unsigned __int8)v19[(_DWORD)result] + 3);

        // result[2] ^= step2_bytes[unk_425680[output_index] + 2]
        result[2] ^= *((_BYTE *)v32 + (unsigned __int8)result[&unk_425682 - (_UNKNOWN *)a2] + 3);

        // result[3] ^= step2_bytes[unk_425680[output_index] + 3]
        result[3] ^= *((_BYTE *)v32 + (unsigned __int8)result[byte_425683 - a2] + 3);
        // Move our our pointer to the output buffer forward by 4 bytes
        result += 4;
        --v30;
      }
      while ( v30 );
    }
    else
    {
        // loop over 8 bytes
      v29 = 8;
      do
      {
        // grab the byte at 0x20, we're swapping this later
        v24 = result[32];

        // v22 = *result ^ step2_bytes[unk_425680[output_index] - 1]
        v22 = *result ^ *((_BYTE *)v32 + (unsigned __int8)result[v20] + 3);

        // I'm not sure why the output buffer pointer is incremented here, but
        // this really makes the code ugly
        result += 4;

        // Write the byte generated above to offset 0x1c
        result[28] = v22;
        // Write the byte at 0x20 to offset 0
        *(result - 4) = v24;

        // rinse, repeat with slightly different offsets each time...
        v25 = result[29];
        result[29] = *(result - 3) ^ *((_BYTE *)v32 + (unsigned __int8)result[(_DWORD)v19 - 4] + 3);
        *(result - 3) = v25;
        v26 = result[30];
        result[30] = *(result - 2) ^ *((_BYTE *)v32 + (unsigned __int8)result[&unk_425682 - (_UNKNOWN *)a2 - 4] + 3);
        *(result - 2) = v26;
        v27 = result[31];
        result[31] = *(result - 1) ^ *((_BYTE *)v32 + (unsigned __int8)result[byte_425683 - a2 - 4] + 3);
        *(result - 1) = v27;
        --v29;
      }
      while ( v29 );
    }

The inner loop in the 

else
 branch above I think is kind of nasty, so here it is reimplemented in Rust:

for _ in 0..8 {
    // we swap the `first` index with the `second`
    for (first, second) in (0x1c..=0x1f).zip(0..4) {
        let original_byte_idx = first + output_offset + 4;

        let original_byte = outbuf[original_byte_idx];

        let constant = unk_425680[output_offset + second] as usize;

        let new_byte = outbuf[output_offset + second] ^ generated_bytes_from_step2[constant - 1];

        let new_idx = original_byte_idx;
        outbuf[new_idx] = new_byte;
        outbuf[output_offset + second] = original_byte;
    }

    output_offset += 4;
}

Key Setup

We now need to figure out how our key is set up for usage in the 

decrypt_data
 function above. My approach here is to set a breakpoint at the first instruction to use the key data in 
decrypt_data
, which happens to be 
xor bl, [ecx + esi + 4]
 at 
0x4079d3
. I know this is where we should break because in the decompiler output the left-hand side of the XOR operation, the key material, will be the second operand in the 
xor
 instruction. As a reminder, the decompiler shows the XOR as:

v8 = *(_BYTE *)(i + 48 * v7 + v3 + 4) ^ a2[(unsigned __int8)byte_424E50[i] + 31];

The breakpoint is hit and the address we’re loading from is 

0x19f5c4
. We can now lean on TTD to help us figure out where this data was last written. Set a 1-byte memory write breakpoint at this address using 
ba w1 0x19f5c4
 and press the 
Go Back
 button. If you’ve never used TTD before, this operates exactly as 
Go
 would except backwards in the program’s trace. In this case it will execute backward until either a breakpoint is hit, interrupt is generated, or we reach the start of the program.

Our memory write breakpoint gets triggered at 

0x4078fb
 — a function we haven’t seen before. The callstack shows that it’s called not terribly far from the 
decrypt_update_info
 routine!

  • set_key
     (we are here — function is originally called 
    sub_407850
    )
  • sub_4082c0
  • decrypt_update_info

What’s 

sub_4082c0
?

Not a lot to see here except the same function called 4 times, initially with the timestamp string as an argument in position 0, a 64-byte buffer, and bunch of function calls using the return value of the last as its input. The function our debugger just broke into takes only 1 argument, which is the 64-byte buffer used across all of these function calls. So what’s going on in 

sub_407e80
?

The bitwise operations that look supsiciously similar to the byte to bit inflation we saw above with the firmware data. After renaming things and performing some loop unrolling, things look like this:

// sub_407850
int inflate_timestamp(void *this, char *timestamp_str, char *output, uint8_t *key) {
    for (size_t output_idx = 0; output_idx < 8; output_idx++) {
        uint8_t ts_byte = *timestamp_str;
        if (ts_byte) {
            timestamp_str += 1;
        }

        for (int bit_idx = 0; bit_idx < 8; bit_idx++) {
            uint8_t bit_value = (ts_byte >> (7 - bit_idx)) & 1;
            output[(output_idx * 8) + bit_idx] ^= bit_value;
        }
    }

    set_key(this, key);
    decrypt_data(this, output, 1);

    return timestamp_str;
}

// sub_4082c0
int set_key_to_timestamp(void *this, char *timestamp_str) {
    uint8_t key_buf[64];
    memset(&key_buf, 0, sizeof(key_buf));

    char *str_ptr = inflate_timestamp(this, timestamp_str, &key_buf, &static_key_1);
    str_ptr = inflate_timestamp(this, str_ptr, &key_buf, &static_key_2);
    str_ptr = inflate_timestamp(this, str_ptr, &key_buf, &static_key_3);
    inflate_timestamp(this, str_ptr, &key_buf, &static_key_4);

    set_key(this, &key_buf);
}

The only mystery now is the 

set_key
 routine:

int __thiscall set_key(char *this, const void *a2)
{
  _DWORD *v2; // ebp
  char *v3; // edx
  char v4; // al
  char v5; // al
  char v6; // al
  char v7; // al
  int result; // eax
  char v10[56]; // [esp+Ch] [ebp-3Ch] BYREF

  qmemcpy(v10, a2, sizeof(v10));
  v2 = &unk_424DE0;
  v3 = this + 5;
  do
  {
    v4 = v10[0];
    qmemcpy(v10, &v10[1], 0x1Bu);
    v10[27] = v4;
    v5 = v10[28];
    qmemcpy(&v10[28], &v10[29], 0x1Bu);
    v10[55] = v5;
    if ( *v2 == 2 )
    {
      v6 = v10[0];
      qmemcpy(v10, &v10[1], 0x1Bu);
      v10[27] = v6;
      v7 = v10[28];
      qmemcpy(&v10[28], &v10[29], 0x1Bu);
      v10[55] = v7;
    }
    for ( result = 0; result < 48; result += 6 )
    {
      v3[result - 1] = v10[(unsigned __int8)byte_424E20[result] - 1];
      v3[result] = v10[(unsigned __int8)byte_424E21[result] - 1];
      v3[result + 1] = v10[(unsigned __int8)byte_424E22[result] - 1];
      v3[result + 2] = v10[(unsigned __int8)byte_424E23[result] - 1];
      v3[result + 3] = v10[(unsigned __int8)byte_424E24[result] - 1];
      v3[result + 4] = v10[(unsigned __int8)byte_424E25[result] - 1];
    }
    ++v2;
    v3 += 48;
  }
  while ( (int)v2 < (int)byte_424E20 );
  return result;
}

This function is a bit more straightforward to reimplement:

void set_key(void *this, uint8_t *key) {
    uint8_t scrambled_key[56];
    memcpy(&scrambled_key, key, sizeof(scrambled_key));

    for (size_t i = 0; i < 16; i++) {
        size_t swap_rounds = 1;
        if (((uint32_t*)GLOBAL_KEY_ROUNDS_CONFIG)[i] == 2) {
            swap_rounds = 2;
        }

        for (int i = 0; i < swap_rounds; i++) {
            uint8_t temp = scrambled_key[0];
            memcpy(&scrambled_key, &scrambled_key[1], 27);
            scrambled_key[27] = temp;

            temp = scrambled_key[28];
            memcpy(&scrambled_key[28], &scrambled_key[29], 27);
            scrambled_key[55] = temp;
        }

        for (size_t swap_idx = 0; swap_idx < 48; swap_idx++) {
            size_t scrambled_key_idx = GLOBAL_KEY_SWAP_TABLE[swap_idx] - 1;

            size_t persistent_key_idx = swap_idx + (i * 48);
            this->key[persistent_key_idx] = scrambled_key[scrambled_key_idx];
        }
    }
}

Putting Everything Together

  1. Update data is read from resources
  2. The first 4 bytes of the update data are a Unix timestamp
  3. The timestamp is formatted as a string, has each byte inflated to its bit representation, and decrypted using some static key material as the key. This is repeated 4 times with the output of the previous run used as an input to the next.
  4. The resulting data from step 3 is used as a key for decrypting data.
  5. The remainder of the firmware update image is inflated to its bit representation 8 bytes at a time and uses the dynamic key and 3 other unique static lookup tables to transform the inflated input data.
  6. The result from step 5 is deflated back into its byte representation.

My decryption utility which completely reimplements this magic in Rust can be found at https://github.com/landaire/porkchop.

Loading the Firmware in IDA Pro

IDA thankfully supports disassembling the Hitachi/Rensas H8SX architecture. If we load our firmware into IDA and select the «Hitachi H8SX advanced» processsor type, use the default options for the «Disassembly memory organization» dialog, then finally choose «H8S/2215R» in the «Choose the device name» dialog…:

We don’t have shit. I’m not an embedded systems expert, but my friend suggested that the first few DWORDs look like they may belong to a vector table. If we right-click address 0 and select «Double word 0x142A», we can click on the new variable 

unk_142A
 to go to its location. Press 
C
 at this location to define it as Code, then press 
P
 to create a function at this address:

We can now reverse engineer our firmware 🙂

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