Sony WH-1000XM4 Voice Pack Extractor

Decrypt and extract the voice guidance MP3 prompts from Sony WH-1000XM4 encrypted firmware files.

The AES-128-CBC key was extracted by dumping the headphones' Airoha MT2811 firmware over Bluetooth Low Energy using the RACE protocol, then disassembling the ARM Cortex-M4 FOTA decryption routine. Full technical writeup: docs/WRITEUP.md

Quick Start

# Install Bun (if not already installed)
curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bash

git clone https://github.com/HelgeSverre/sony-vp-extract.git
cd sony-vp-extract
bun install

# Downloads from Sony CDN automatically, then extracts
bun run cli/extract.ts --all

Usage

# Extract all — auto-downloads from Sony CDN if voice-packs/ is empty
bun run cli/extract.ts --all [input-dir] [output-dir]

# Extract a single voice pack
bun run cli/extract.ts voice-packs/VP_english_UPG_03.bin extracted/

# Show voice pack info
bun run cli/extract.ts --info voice-packs/VP_english_UPG_03.bin

# Download only (no extraction)
bun run cli/extract.ts --download [output-dir]

Python alternative

uv run extract_all.py

Downloads from Sony CDN + decrypts + extracts — all in one command. Dependencies are declared inline (PEP 723) — uv run handles everything automatically.

Available Languages

Language	File	Prompts	CDN
🇬🇧 English	VP_english_UPG_03.bin	54	Download
🇫🇷 French	VP_french_UPG_03.bin	54	Download
🇩🇪 German	VP_german_UPG_03.bin	54	Download
🇪🇸 Spanish	VP_spanish_UPG_03.bin	54	Download
🇮🇹 Italian	VP_italian_UPG_03.bin	54	Download
🇵🇹 Portuguese	VP_portuguese_UPG_03.bin	54	Download
🇳🇱 Dutch	VP_dutch_UPG_03.bin	54	Download
🇸🇪 Swedish	VP_swedish_UPG_03.bin	54	Download
🇫🇮 Finnish	VP_finnish_UPG_03.bin	54	Download
🇹🇷 Turkish	VP_turkish_UPG_03.bin	54	Download

Voice Pack Format

┌───────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Header (4096 bytes)                  │
│  ├── 0x000  Random nonce (32 bytes)   │
│  └── 0x100  TLV metadata             │
│       ├── compression_type = 2        │
│       ├── body_size                   │
│       ├── decompressed_size (1 MB)    │
│       └── SHA-256 of decompressed     │
├───────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Body (offset 0x1000+)               │
│  AES-128-CBC encrypted               │
│  └── LZMA1 compressed                │
│       └── Voice guidance image (1MB)  │
│            ├── Header (version+count) │
│            ├── Entry table (54 × 8B)  │
│            │   (size, abs_offset)     │
│            └── MP3 files (48kHz mono) │
└───────────────────────────────────────┘

The Key

AES-128-CBC Key: eibohjeCh6uegahf
AES-128-CBC IV:  miefeinuShu9eilo

Found hardcoded as ASCII strings in the MT2811 CM4 firmware's .rodata section at flash offset 0xD53A (key) and 0xD529 (IV). Same key is used across all WH-1000XM4 units and all language packs.

How It Was Found

1. Connected to the WH-1000XM4 over Bluetooth (the headphones were paired to a phone)
2. Discovered the RACE (Airoha Command Extensions) BLE GATT service
3. Dumped 59KB of CM4 firmware from flash using RACE_STORAGE_PAGE_READ (cmd 0x0403)
4. Located the AES S-box at firmware offset 0x81F4
5. Determined runtime base address 0x04200000 from ARM vector table literal pool
6. Disassembled the FOTA decryption function, traced key loading from literal pool

Full technical details: docs/WRITEUP.md

Prerequisites

• Bun ≥ 1.0 — for the TypeScript CLI
• uv — for the Python scripts (dependencies are resolved automatically via inline metadata)

Extract the Key Yourself

If you want to verify the key independently, you can dump the firmware from your own paired WH-1000XM4 headphones and extract the key from it:

# Dump firmware over BLE and extract key
uv run cli/extract_key.py

# Or if you already have a firmware dump:
uv run cli/extract_key.py --firmware your_dump.bin

# Bun alternative (firmware dump required):
bun run cli/extract.ts --extract-key your_dump.bin

The tool searches the firmware binary for the AES S-box, finds adjacent null-terminated 16-byte ASCII strings, then validates each candidate pair by attempting to decrypt a voice pack and checking for valid LZMA headers.

Project Structure

├── cli/
│   ├── extract.ts          # Bun CLI tool (extract + key finder)
│   └── extract_key.py      # Python BLE firmware dumper + key finder
├── docs/
│   └── WRITEUP.md          # Full technical writeup
├── voice-packs/            # Downloaded .bin files (gitignored)
├── extracted/              # Extracted MP3 prompts (gitignored)
├── extract_all.py          # Python alternative extractor
├── package.json
└── README.md

Disclaimer

This project documents security research conducted for educational purposes on personally owned hardware. The headphones analyzed were paired and connected normally — no unauthorized access was involved.