Software-defined radio (SDR) technology can be used for many interesting technical experiments. With listening only SDR you can do many interesting things, but having a SDR that can also transmit opens many new doors. Here are some interesting videos related to SDR and cyber security:
Universal Radio Hacker – Replay Attack With HackRF
Download here: https://github.com/jopohl/urh
Radio Hacking: Cars, Hardware, and more! – Samy Kamkar – AppSec California 2016
Hacking Car Key Fobs with SDR
Getting Started With The HackRF, Hak5 1707
Hacking Ford Key Fobs Pt. 1 – SDR Attacks with @TB69RR – Hak5 2523
Hacking Ford Key Fobs Pt. 2 – SDR Attacks with @TB69RR – Hak5 2524
Hacking Ford Key Fobs Pt. 3 – SDR Attacks with @TB69RR – Hak5 2525
Hacking Restaurant Pagers with HackRF
Software Defined Spectrum Analyser – Hack RF
Locating Cellular Signal with HackRF Spectrum Analyzer SDR Software
GSM Sniffing: Voice Decryption 101 – Software Defined Radio Series #11
How To Listen To Trunked Police Radio And Why Im Done
Transmitting NTSC/ATSC Video With the HackRF One and Gnuradio
Check also Using a HackRF SDR to Sniff RF Emissions from a Cryptocurrency Hardware Wallet and Obtain the PIN article.
367 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/03/communicating-with-satellites-like-its-1957/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.edn.com/partners-simplify-fpga-based-wireless-development/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/11/a-tiny-tapeout-sdr/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/13/budget-minded-synthetic-aperture-radar-takes-to-the-skies/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Octet Of ESP32s Lets You See WiFi Like Never Before
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/15/octet-of-esp32s-lets-you-see-wifi-like-never-before/
Most of us see the world in a very narrow band of the EM spectrum. Sure, there are people with a genetic quirk that extends the range a bit into the UV, but it’s a ROYGBIV world for most of us. Unless, of course, you have something like this ESP32 antenna array, which gives you an augmented reality view of the WiFi world.
According to [Jeija], “ESPARGOS” consists of an antenna array board and a controller board. The antenna array has eight ESP32-S2FH4 microcontrollers and eight 2.4 GHz WiFi patch antennas spaced a half-wavelength apart in two dimensions. The ESP32s extract channel state information (CSI) from each packet they receive, sending it on to the controller board where another ESP32 streams them over Ethernet while providing the clock and phase reference signals needed to make the phased array work. This gives you all the information you need to calculate where a signal is coming from and how strong it is, which is used to plot a sort of heat map to overlay on a webcam image of the same scene.
ESPARGOS: ESP32-based WiFi sensing array
https://espargos.net/
Develop and deploy WiFi sensing applications effortlessly: ESPARGOS is a phase-coherent ESP32 antenna array.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://luaradio.io/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://rftap.github.io/
https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/151487/how-to-connect-hackrf-to-wireshark
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/17230-ble-laitteita-voidaan-vihdoin-testata-langattomasti
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2025/03/10/whats-wrong-with-this-antenna-tuner/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/26/a-ten-band-sdr-transceiver-for-homebrewers/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.traficom.fi/fi/viestinta/viestintaverkot/taajuusvarauksen-ja-radioluvan-hakeminen
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2025/03/18/writing-a-gps-receiver-from-scratch/
GPS is an incredible piece of modern technology. Not only does it allow for locating objects precisely anywhere on the planet, but it also enables the turn-by-turn directions we take for granted these days — all without needing anything more than a radio receiver and some software to decode the signals constantly being sent down from space. [Chris] took that last bit bit as somewhat of a challenge and set off to write a software-defined GPS receiver from the ground up.
https://github.com/chrisdoble/gps-receiver
The gpsreceiver directory contains a Python package that processes samples of GPS signals from a file or SDR dongle to estimate a clock bias and location. It logs information to stdout, e.g. when satellites are acquired or a solution is computed, but doesn’t provide a graphical interface — for that you’ll need to run the dashboard (see below).
Tomi Engdahl says:
RTL-SDR With Only A Browser
https://hackaday.com/2025/03/23/rtl-sdr-with-only-a-browser/
Surely by now you’ve at least heard of RTL-SDR — a software project that let’s cheap TV tuner dongles work as a software-defined radios. A number of projects and tools have spun off the original effort, but in his latest video, [Tech Minds] shows off a particularly unique take. It’s a Web browser-based radio application that uses WebUSB, so it doesn’t require the installation of any application software.
There are a few things you should know. First, you need the correct USB drivers for your RTL-SDR. Second, your browser must support WebUSB, of course. Practically, that means you need a Chromium-type browser. You may have to configure your system to allow raw access to the USB port, too.
How To Use Your RTL-SDR Locally With Just A Web Browser
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INFu8jUHNhM
In this video we take a look at how you can use an RTL SDR with just a web browser, no SDR software needs to be installed!
Radio Receiver
An application to listen to radio transmissions from your browser using a cheap RTL-SDR stick.
https://radio.ea1iti.es/help.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2025/03/16/a-hackers-approach-to-all-things-antenna/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raspberry Pi Pico Makes an MSF-SDR: Decode a Time Signal with a Pi Pico SDR
https://www.elektormagazine.com/magazine/elektor-260/60555
#raspberrypi #sdr #radio #communication
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jon Dawson’s Pi Pico Rx Is a Compact Raspberry Pi Pico SDR Inspired by Crystal Radio Kits
An introduction to electronics as a youth gives rise to a clever QSD software-defined radio design, making full use of the RP2040 chip
https://www.hackster.io/news/jon-dawson-s-pi-pico-rx-is-a-compact-raspberry-pi-pico-sdr-inspired-by-crystal-radio-kits-da7b23d9d9e5
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2025/04/11/brush-up-on-your-trade-craft-with-this-tiny-fm-bug/