Universal Radio Hacker v2.9.5 releases: investigate wireless protocols like a boss

by do son · Published August 26, 2019 · Updated October 29, 2023

The Universal Radio Hacker (URH) is a tool for analyzing unknown wireless protocols. With the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) such protocols often appear in the wild. Many IoT devices operate on frequencies like 433.92 MHz or 868.3 MHz and use proprietary protocols for communication. Reverse-engineering such protocols can be fascinating (»What does my fridge talks about?«) and reveal serious security leaks e.g. when bypassing smart alarm systems and door locks.

The Universal Radio Hacker is a software for investigating unknown wireless protocols. Features include

hardware interfaces for common Software Defined Radios
easy demodulation of signals
assigning participants to keep an overview of your data
customizable decodings to crack even sophisticated encodings like CC1101 data whitening
assign labels to reveal the logic of the protocol
fuzzing component to find security leaks
modulation support to inject the data back into the system

With the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) such protocols often appear in the wild. Many IoT devices operate on frequencies like 433.92 MHz or 868.3 MHz and use proprietary protocols for communication. Reverse-engineering such protocols can be fascinating (»What does my fridge talks about?«) and reveal serious security leaks e.g. when bypassing smart alarm systems and door locks.
So how can we join this game? Software Defined Radios (SDR) are the answer for this. Such devices allow sending and receiving on nearly arbitrary frequencies. Such devices allow sending and receiving on nearly arbitrary frequencies.

Like the name suggests SDRs need software to be properly operated. This is where the Universal Radio Hacker comes into play: It takes the samples from the SDR and transforms them into binary information (bits). But this is only the beginning: URH is designed to help you throughout the entire process of attacking the wireless communication of IoT devices.
In the upcoming sections, you will learn how to use URH and reverse engineer wireless protocols in minutes.