Tag: IoT

WIO Terminal: Powerful All-in-One Arduino

Today we are going to take a quick look at the WIO Terminal – The all-in-one Arduino solution from Seeedstudio. I received a review unit from Seeed to test and had a blast, so let’s get to it!

This feature loaded device includes a 2.4” display, Wi-Fi, MicroSD Card Reader, microphone, IR Emitter, and more. At the pricepoint of about $30, it is very affordable. Of all the Arduino device I have tested in the last few months, the WIO Terminal is easily the most impressive. I also think it will be the one that will be the most useful in the security testing field.

The WIO Terminal comes with a 2.4” Display built in. You can custom program the display using code, or display photos & images, or app output. You can program the buttons to scroll through the pictures or as input. You could use the WIO to play games, a simple one was pre-encoded on the device when I received it:

There are a lot of walk throughs and excellent code examples for every feature on the WIO Terminal Wiki. You can use any of the demo programs included in the WIO Terminal Wiki to get up and running quickly.

Like playing with the built in sensors:

You can store and save files to the MicroSD card, just format it as FAT32 (See the WIO Terminal Wiki for coding instructions).

You can display images or run a photo display show. Just use the photo display example, and drag and drop the photos to the SD card before you insert it into the WIO.

You could add sound using the built in buzzer. For “May the 4th” day, I had the WIO show an image of Darth Vader and play the Imperial March!

Another cool features of the WIO that I haven’t seen in other devices, is that it has built in magnets. This would allow you place the WIO on any metal surface and it will stick (your battery source would need to have magnest also). This could come in handy during a Red Team or Pentest, just snap the device onto a metal cabinet or inside a desk.

The built in microphone is a very interesting feature – you could program it to trigger on sound:

More capabilities are being added to the microphone library, so I am thinking at some point you would be able to record sound and save it on the internal SDCard. Of course, as a pentester, you wouldn’t want it to say “Microphone Reading”, lol.

Maybe something more like this:

The WIO can also connect to and act like a Raspberry Pi HAT!
Note: connector pins not included

The WIO Terminal can act as a USB client or host, I think this will be a great opportunity to turn the WIO into a HiD attack device, like a Rubber Ducky. Maybe at some point a USB ethernet connector would work with it, that would be very interesting. There were some coding issues with the HiD interface when I tried it out, but it is being worked on as we speak, and will be fixed soon.

Add in the ability to scan and attach to WiFi networks and you really have a complete programmable security tool. I did have trouble with the WiFi on my prototype board, but again, it seemed to be a coding issue and I am sure it will be taken care of soon.

It has two built in Grove connectors so you can attach a wide variety of sensors to it, greatly increasing its capabilities. Or use a WIO Link card to greatly increase its sensor connectivity:

I am really looking forward to delving deeper into this tool in the next few months. I think it has the capabilities to be a great addition to a Pentester’s toolkit, with the right programming and connected sensors. The WIO Terminal from Seeedstudio, Check it out!

Hands-On Review: Grove AI HAT for Edge Computing

Bring next level intelligence to your Raspberry Pi projects with the Grove AI HAT for Edge Computing. In this article we will take a quick hands-on view of the Grove AI HAT board & Ultrasonic Sensor in standalone mode, and used as a Raspberry Pi HAT.

Introduction

The Grove AI HAT for Edge Computing is built around Sipeed MAix M1 AI MODULE with the Kendryte K210 processor inside. It’s a low cost but powerful stand-alone board that can also run as a Raspberry Pi Artificial Intelligence HAT.

The board not only bristles with peripheral connections (I2C/UART/SPI/I2S/PWM/GPIO), but has built in audio and video processing capabilities for AI projects.  This means you can connect multiple Grove Sensors to the board. Couple that with its video and audio capabilities and it makes it an interesting choice for Edge Computing environments. 

Seeedstudio provided me with a Grove AI Hat board for review. There are plenty of articles on the technical specs of the board, so this article will be more of a “hands-on” usage review. Let’s hook a Grove sensor up to the board and use it on its own, and as a Raspberry Pi HAT.

The Grove AI HAT is a new board, so there are not a lot of usability instructions available at this time. One of the quickest ways I found to interface with the board is to use the Seeedstudio Arduino interface. The ArduinoCore-API interface has been added to the board, allowing support for multiple development environments, including Arduino IDE, Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X. This basically means you can run Grove Arduino Libraries and many other Arduino libraries on this board.

Enough intro, let’s see it in action!

Basic Arduino Instructions

The Grove AI HAT can function entirely on its own and in conjunction with a Raspberry Pi. A good starting point is to connect one of the many Grove sensors to the board, and perform basic input/ output using the Arduino library.

In this section, we will see how to interact with a Grove Ultrasonic range sensor and view the output using the individual board, and then as a Raspberry Pi HAT.  

Follow the Arduino setup instructions on the Seeed website carefully. You need to add board drivers and use a specific writing option (K-flash), if you pick the wrong options, your board will not function properly.

Follow the setup instructions here:

http://wiki.seeedstudio.com/Grove_AI_HAT_for_Edge_Computing/

Summarized below:

  • Download and install the Arduino IDE on your computer
  • Run Arduino IDE
  • Add the K210 Grove AI HAT for Edge Computing driver
  • Select the K-flash programmer

The Arduino IDE is now configured to work with the Grove board.

Using the Grove Board Standalone

Once everything is setup, you can use Seeed’s sample Arduino code to control the board directly. For example, the Ultrasonic sensor.

WARNING: Do no connect or disconnect sensors to the board while it is powered up, you could damage it!

Connect your range sensor to the board (I used port D13)

Then using a USB C cable, connect the board to your computer. This will power up the board and allow your computer to communicate to it.

  • Next, load in the ultrasonic Arduino library into your sketch project folder.
  • In the Arduino IDE, enter the sample code provided by Seeed:
  • Compile and write the code to your board

Now, open the Arduino serial monitor and you should see live range detection:

Move your hand back and forth in front of the range detector, you should see the range update live in your Serial Monitor tab.

That’s all well and good, but this is a Raspberry Pi HAT! How do you use it with a Raspberry Pi?

Grove on the Raspberry Pi

In this section we will look at using the Grove AI board with a Raspberry Pi 3b+. The Pi 3b is running Raspbian and is setup up for remote access via Putty. To use the Grove Board and Pi in tandem, we need to connect them together. Disconnect power (the USB cable), connect the riser board to the Grove board, and then carefully connect the Pi and grove boards together. Make sure no power is applied to either board, and the pins line up correctly, or you could damage your boards.

Only provide power to one board, the Pi or the Grove Hat, if you connect power to both boards you need to change a switch on the Grove board.  

Connect the USB cord from your PC to the Grove power port. Both the Grove board and Raspberry Pi should power up at the same time. In this configuration, you can still use the Arduino Serial Monitor to view the sensor output. But we want to see it on the Pi.

To use the Grove board on a Pi, we will need to install the Grove Python library.

Instructions can be found here:

http://wiki.seeedstudio.com/Grove_Base_Kit_for_Raspberry_Pi/

Basically, from a Raspbian install:

Now with the Grove library installed, we can run a short Python program to communicate with the Sensor through the Raspberry PI.

  • cd ~/grove.py/grove

Enter in, save and run the following Python program in the grove directory:

ultrasonic.py:

It should look like this when done:

Now, just run the ultrasonic.py program:

And that’s it! You should see distance displayed in real time.

You can open the Arduino Serial monitor and get readings from it at the same time, as seen below:

One interesting feature is that if the Pi is shutdown, or the Python program stopped, the Grove board can continue to work.

As seen below:

The Ultrasonic program was stopped, but the device continues to operate as seen in the Arduino serial monitor.

AI Computing

As mentioned at the beginning of this video, the Grove HAT has video and audio processing capability built in. I ran into some questions on how to access the video and audio part of the card and am waiting to hear back from Seeed tech support. So, I will explore this capability in future articles, but for now, Seeed has a great demo video of this capability on their website:

https://project.seeedstudio.com/SeeedStudio/face-count-and-display-using-grove-ai-hat-and-pi-3e100f

Conclusion

This was just a very basic intro to the Grove AI HAT for Edge Computing. The board is very exciting as it brings a host of sensor capabilities to the Raspberry Pi platform. I believe this will allow for much more intelligent Pentest drop boxes (it could sense and record when someone was in the room, for example), robotics projects, Magic Mirrors, and whatever else you can dream up. Stay tuned, more to come!

About Seeed Studio:
Seeed is the IoT hardware enabler providing services over 10 years that empower makers to realize their projects and products. Seeed offers a wide array of hardware platforms and sensor modules ready to be integrated with existing IoT platforms and one stop PCB manufacturing and Prototype PCB Assembly.

Seeed Studio provides a wide selection of electronic parts including Arduino, Raspberry Pi and many different development board platforms. Especially the Grove System help engineers and makers avoid jumper wires problems. Seeed Studio has developed more than 280 Grove modules covering a wide range of applications that can fulfill a variety of needs. 

Pi 4 Hacking Platform using DietPi and PTF

Building a Raspberry Pi 4 Ethical Hacking platform using The Pentesters Framework and DietPi.

I’ve been playing with using different hacking tools and Operating Systems with the Pi 4. In this article I cover installing The Pentesters Framework on a RPi 4 running DietPi.

DietPi is a very lightweight Debian OS for the Raspberry Pi. The Pentesters Framework by TrustedSec is an Ethical Hacking installation script that automatically installs and updates over 250 modules/ tools. It would be great if they would work together on a Raspberry Pi 4. The good news is that is does – With a couple tweaks.

I cover installing and using The Pentesters Framework on Raspberry Pi in my latest book. So, I am not going to go into great detail on using the tools in PTF. I just want to cover actually installing it on DietPi.

Installing

NOTE: You will need a Raspberry Pi 4, and at the minimum a 32 GB MicroSD card if you want to install all of the PTF tools. Don’t have a Pi 4? Seeed is currently offering free shipping for orders over $119 with a Raspberry Pi 4 4GB.

Insert the MicroSD card into your Pi, attach peripherals and lastly connect power (always connect power last). When DietPi boots up you will be presented with some options.

  • Pick any software install options you want, then “Go install software”
  • Requested software and updates will be installed
  • Reboot when finished

I just run through it quickly the first time to get the latest OS updates. Note the CPU temp warning, it’s a Pi 4, it runs hotter than a Pi 3.

To install an “X” Desktop or any other included software, type, “dietpi-software”.

There are a ton of add-on software options under “Software Optimised”. For example, if you want a graphical desktop, pick the X-Desktop you want and then the “Go install software” option. You can also setup your login preferences from this menu – auto login, desktop login, etc.

All we really need here is to install Python. Then we need to make a small config file tweak and finally install PTF.

Installing Python

From the DietPi-Software menu, go to “Software Additional” and install Python:

  • Cursor down to Python Pip, hit the space bar to select it.
  • Select “OK”

You will return to the main menu.,

  • Cursor down and select “Go >> Start Installation”
  • Reboot when finished

We need to install git:

  • Open a terminal and enter, “apt install git”

Next we need to comment out a line in the ‘/etc/hosts’ file or the PTF install will error out.

  • Comment out the “::1 localhost  IPv6 localhost” line
  • Reboot

That’s it! We can now proceed with the standard PTF install:

You will then see the main PTF interface:

Type “show modules” to see all available modules. You can install individual ones if you wish. If you have a large memory card (32 Gb), you can install all of them.

  • To install all tools, enter “use modules/install_update_all“
  • Reboot when finished

The install will take a very long time, especially if you install all of the modules. After install, all tools will be located in category themed directories under the ‘/pentest’ directory, as seen below:

Many of the tools can be run from anywhere, but some tools require you to change into its install directory for it to work properly. This is usually ‘/pentest’, but some run from ‘/usr/share’ as well. Check it out, there are a ton of very good tools at your disposal, like “Sniper”:

And there you have it. Again, I go into much deeper detail in my book about using PTF on a Pi, I just wanted to show how it could be installed on DietPi. If you want to learn a lot more about using Raspberry Pi for Ethical hacking check out my latest book – Security Testing with Raspberry Pi

New Book: “Security Testing with Raspberry Pi”

My latest book, “Security Testing with Raspberry Pi” is out. The newest in my “Security Testing” series is all about the versatile Raspberry Pi! †

The credit card sized Raspberry Pi has been a hit with makers for years, it is amazing how many different ways you can use these devices. What many don’t know is that they are also a great tool for use in the security field.

The RPi can run many of the popular Ethical Hacking tools and operating systems. The small size and portability of the Pi makes it a perfect tool for Red Teams and Pentesters.

For example, the RPi makes for great pentesting “Drop Boxes”, small scanning remote access tools left behind on a client’s website during a test. But that is just one use, thanks to P4wnP1, the Pi can also be used as a very powerful and live customizable HiD attack tool. They can even be used as surveillance cameras.

In my book, I cover how to install and use many of the top security tools on the Raspberry Pi.

How to install Kali Linux on a RPi, installing security tools on Raspbian, how to use Warberry Pi – a drop box like system, even how to setup your Pi to act like a security camera, and much, much more!

Like my previous books, the first thing covered is setting up a test lab with vulnerable targets. You will see how to use the RPi to scan test systems for vulnerabilities. I also cover how to use the RPi as an actual test target so you hone your ethical hacking skills without breaking the bank.

This book basically takes off where “Basic Security Testing with Kali Linux” ends and shows you how to use a Pi as a functional security tool. Though not a beginner, “How to use a Pi” book, I use step-by-step tutorials for those new to ethical hacking and the Raspberry Pi.

What about the Raspberry Pi 4? The book now includes notes for those who want to use the brand new Pi 4. As the Pi 4 was just released, many of the operating systems and tools are not 100% functional yet with the Pi 4. But you can install Kali Linux on the Pi 4, and use many of the popular security tools in Raspbian. Functionality will increase as time goes on and as tools are updated to work with the Pi 4.

If you are interested in the Raspberry Pi and want to see how to use it in the security realm, check out, “Security Testing with Raspberry Pi“!