PACCOR4ESP: Embedded Device Security Attestation using Platform Attribute Certificates

Abstract: Verifying the integrity of embedded device characteristics is required to ensure secure operation of a device. One central challenge is to securely extract and store device-specific configurations for future verification. Existing device attestation schemes suffer from notable limitations, including a lack of standardization and a failure to encompass all hardware and software aspects inherent to a platform. This paper proposes an extension of the NSA Cybersecurity Directorate's Platform Attribute Certificate Creator (PACCOR) for the ESP32, a widely-used microcontroller series. Platform Attribute Certificates store device characteristics as per the Trusted Computing Group's Platform Certificate Profile. As of today, there is little research on hybrid attestation schemes utilizing Platform Attribute Certificates on embedded devices, which this work addresses. This paper presents a collection of attacks that can be detected using PACCOR4ESP. The toolkit extracts security-relevant information from an ESP32-S3, such as the firmware hash, bootloader hash, GPIO pin configuration, and a reference to the endorsement key of the secure element, and automatically embeds it into a Platform Attribute Certificate. Lastly, this work shows how PACCOR4ESP can be integrated with existing embedded device attestation frameworks, such as RAS, CRAFT, and SEDA.