A Cisco Router Bug Has Global Implications

The Red Balloon team showed specifically that they could compromise the device’s secure boot process, a function implemented by the Trust Anchor that protects the fundamental code coordinating hardware and software as a device turns on, and checks that it’s genuine and unmodified. FPGA Tour
The researcher group, which also includes Jatin Kataria, Red Balloon’s principal scientist and Rick Housley, an independent security researcher, were able to bypass Cisco’s secure boot protections by manipulating a hardware component at the core of the Trust Anchor called a “field programmable gate array.” Josh Thomas, Atredis

But the Red Balloon researchers found that the way the FPGA was implemented for Cisco’s Trust Anchor, they didn’t need to map the whole bitstream.

Source: www.wired.com