To see the Eclypsium Hardware Hacking Coaster in person, visit the Eclypsium booth at Black Hat USA, DEF CON, or request a private demo at eclypsium.com. No height requirement. No firmware guarantee.
Security enthusiasts have taken the concept and infused it with microcontrollers (like the Raspberry Pi Pico or ESP32) to create devices that look like coasters but function as: Eclypsium Hardware Hacking Coaster
Most security tools operate at the operating system (OS) level or the application level. They look for malicious files or suspicious network traffic. Eclypsium, however, looks at the "foundational" layer—the BIOS/UEFI, the UEFI drivers, and the hardware components themselves. To see the Eclypsium Hardware Hacking Coaster in
To prove the severity, the researcher triggers the final payload. The coaster car climbs the lift hill… and stops. Mid-climb. The brakes engage unevenly. The ride operator cannot override the command because the control panel’s firmware was also corrupted. The car hangs there, a physical metaphor for ransomware: Pay us, or the ride never comes down. Security enthusiasts have taken the concept and infused
: Another contribution from Travis Goodspeed, the GoodFET42 is an open-source JTAG adapter used for debugging and extracting data from microcontrollers and other embedded systems. Bus Pirate
While the coaster itself is a static object (unless modified by a particularly ambitious engineer), it serves as a powerful educational aid. In an era of complex supply chain attacks—such as the SolarWinds hack or the specter of interdiction (intercepting hardware in transit to implant bugs)—the coaster is a tangible representation of the supply chain.
[P1] J. Grande, “Teardown of the Eclypsium Hardware Hacking Coaster,” Hackaday , Aug. 2023. [P2] Eclypsium Labs, “Hardware Hacking Coaster: Lab Guide,” Eclypsium Inc., 2023. [P3] C. O’Flynn, “Fault Injection on Low-Cost Microcontrollers,” Black Hat USA , 2021. [P4] Atmel, “AVR105: Power Efficient High-Endurance Parameter Storage in EEPROM,” Application Note, 2015. [P5] D. Storm, “Teaching Hardware Security with Consumer Toys,” USENIX Security Education Workshop , 2024.