Example of a Hardware Challenge for an Ethical Hacking Competition

Abstract

For the national ethical hacking competition, a hardware challenge was developed—a device based on the ESP32‑S3 microcontroller with intentionally introduced security vulnerabilities that participants must exploit across four tasks. The vulnerabilities on this device simulate issues commonly found in IoT and related devices: unprotected ports, firmware extraction and reverse engineering, insecure storage of cryptographic secrets, weak passwords, and insecure over‑the‑air updates.

Keywords: Hardware Security, Ethical Hacking, Internet of Things (IoT)

Published on website: 25.11.2025

Attached files: majaMiljanic.pdf