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the-key-ships-with-the-lock-cve-2026-82876-phison-s11-ssd-firmware-signature-bypass — Proof-of-concept demonstrating a firmware signature verification bypass in Phison S11 SSDs, allowing attackers to re-sign modified firmware by embedding their own RSA modulus. | Kitploit
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the-key-ships-with-the-lock-cve-2026-82876-phison-s11-ssd-firmware-signature-bypass

Proof-of-concept demonstrating a firmware signature verification bypass in Phison S11 SSDs, allowing attackers to re-sign modified firmware by embedding their own RSA modulus.

View Repository
8h 18m agoNot yet reviewed

CVE-2026-82876 — Phison S11 SSD Firmware Signature Verification Bypass (PoC)

Proof-of-concept for CVE-2026-82876 (CVSS 3.1: 8.2 High / CVSS 4.0: 9.3 Critical, CWE-347): the Phison PS3111-S11 SATA SSD controller verifies firmware-update RSA signatures against a public modulus embedded inside the firmware image itself instead of a modulus anchored in immutable controller storage. Anyone can generate their own RSA key pair, re-sign modified firmware, embed the matching modulus — and every S11-based drive accepts the tampered image as genuine.

Companion advisory: CVE-2026-84696 (CWE-306) — privileged vendor unique commands (VUCs) exposed over the ATA interface with absent or defeatable authentication (CRC-16 challenge-response), allowing read/write access to controller memory and raw NAND — i.e., the same implant persistence without even going through the firmware-update path.

Vulnerability research by Michael Herbert (trulycrisp). CVEs published Aug 31 / Sep 2, 2026 (NVD), advisories by VulnCheck.

What this PoC does

forge_signature.py is a logic-level, dependency-free demonstration — pure Python 3 standard library, no hardware required:

  1. Builds a synthetic image mirroring the documented S11 .BIN layout (512-byte header | burner code | 3072-byte signature segment | normal code) and a real RSA-2048/PKCS#1 v1.5/SHA-256 signature over it.
  2. Verifies it with the drive's own logic — including the flaw: the RSA public modulus is read from offset +768 of the image.
  3. Shows tampering without re-signing correctly FAILS (the cryptography is implemented properly — the anchoring is not).
  4. Shows the signature segment is optional: an image with no signature at all is accepted (documented S11 behavior).
  5. The bypass: generates an attacker key pair, re-signs the implanted code, embeds the attacker's modulus — verification PASSES.
  6. Reimplements the controller's CRC-32-style boot checksum (from the original research) to show what the boot path actually validates after installation: only that checksum, which the attacker recomputes.

Usage

root@kitploit:~
$ python3 forge_signature.py

Takes ~5–15 s (two pure-Python RSA-2048 key generations). No third-party packages.

Running it against a real drive

This repository intentionally stops at the logic level. To work against actual S11-based hardware, use the researcher's own tooling (Python):

root@kitploit:~
$ git clone https://github.com/trulycrisp/psychite
$ cd psychite && python3 -m pip install -e .
$ example/drive_info.py /dev/sg0                  # identify the drive
$ example/read_firmware.py /dev/sg0 firmware.bin  # dump installed firmware
$ example/firmware_tool.py unpack firmware.bin fw/  # unpack for modification
$ example/firmware_tool.py pack fw/ firmware.bin    # repack
$ example/update_firmware.py firmware.bin /dev/sg0  # install (DANGEROUS)

To audit a drive's VUC lock posture (read-only checks), use disksec:

root@kitploit:~
$ disksec list
$ disksec run /dev/sg0 -vv -o report.txt

Affected hardware

Phison PS3111-S11 controller firmware ≤ SBFQT1.3 — no fix is available as of this writing. The S11 powers a large share of budget SATA SSDs, including (per the researcher's hardware table): Kingston A400 / Q500, Toshiba/Kioxia TR200, PNY CS900 / CS2040 / Elite, Seagate BarraCuda Q1, Silicon Power A58, Patriot Burst, MSI S270, Team GX1, and many more.

Warning

This code is for authorised security research and education only. Only flash firmware to drives you own. Modified firmware can permanently brick the drive, and installing implants on drives you do not own is a crime in most jurisdictions.

References

  • Original research: https://trulycrisp.github.io/drivefirmware/phison_s11/
  • VulnCheck advisory (CVE-2026-82876): https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/phison-ps3111-s11-controller-firmware-signature-verification-bypass
  • VulnCheck advisory (CVE-2026-84696): https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/phison-ps3111-s11-controller-firmware-missing-authentication-on-vendor-unique-commands
  • NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-82876 · https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-84696
  • Researcher tooling: https://github.com/trulycrisp/psychite · https://github.com/trulycrisp/disksec
  • Hunt-Benito article: https://www.hunt-benito.com/blog/the-key-ships-with-the-lock-cve-2026-82876-phison-s11-ssd-firmware-signature-bypass/
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