🌘 Penumbra (MTK flash/readback + seccfg bootloader unlock to...

[carlospolop]

🤖 Automated Content Update

This PR was automatically generated by the HackTricks News Bot based on a technical blog post.

📝 Source Information

• Blog URL: https://github.com/shomykohai/penumbra
• Blog Title: 🌘 Penumbra (MTK flash/readback + seccfg bootloader unlock tooling in Rust)
• Suggested Section: Hardware/Physical Access -> Firmware Analysis (or Mobile Pentesting -> Android Applications Pentesting, as a new subsection for MTK bootrom/preloader/DA tooling)

🎯 Content Summary

What it is

Penumbra is an open-source Rust crate + CLI/TUI tool for interacting with MediaTek (MTK) devices. It provides flashing and readback capabilities, and can also attempt bootloader unlocking/relocking on vulnerable devices by changing the device security configuration (seccfg).

Project site (as referenced by the repo): https://shomy.is-a.dev/penumbra/

Why it matters (security relevance)...

🔧 Technical Details

MTK DA-mode interaction workflow: Discover a MediaTek USB port (preloader/bootrom) by repeatedly polling an API like find_mtk_port() until it returns a port handle, then create a device session by injecting a Download Agent (DA) blob (e.g., std::fs::read("../DA_penangf.bin") passed into DeviceBuilder::with_da_data(...)). Call an initialization routine (e.g., init().await) to complete the handshake and populate device info, after which higher-privilege DA-mode operations can be issued.

Security posture probing via bitfields: Read a target configuration bitfield (e.g., dev_info.target_config().await) and interpret individual protections by masking bits; the example checks whether “SBC” is enabled using (tgt_cfg & 0x1) != 0. This kind of bit-test can be generalized to quickly branch exploit/operation logic depending on boot/security configuration.

Bootloader lock man...

🤖 Agent Actions

Summary:

• Added MTK DA-mode exploitation section to the MediaTek secure-boot bypass page, documenting Penumbra’s workflow for DA loading, seccfg lock manipulation, and partition readback.
• Included environment/driver prerequisites (Linux udev/dialout, Windows WinUSB/Zadig caveats) and security impact context.
• Added detailed Rust usage example and reference to the Penumbra project.

Tests:

• Not run (documentation-only change).

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This PR was automatically created by the HackTricks Feed Bot. Please review the changes carefully before merging.

[carlospolop]

🔗 Additional Context

Original Blog Post: https://github.com/shomykohai/penumbra

Content Categories: Based on the analysis, this content was categorized under "Hardware/Physical Access -> Firmware Analysis (or Mobile Pentesting -> Android Applications Pentesting, as a new subsection for MTK bootrom/preloader/DA tooling)".

Repository Maintenance:

• MD Files Formatting: 944 files processed

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Bot Version: HackTricks News Bot v1.0