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DEF CON 26 - Christopher Domas - GOD MODE UNLOCKED Hardware Backdoors in redacted x86

DEFCONConference · 86K views · 2018-10-22 · 46:04

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Overview

Christopher Domas presents research at DEF CON 26 showing a hidden alternate instruction set and undocumented hardware backdoor in some x86 processors, found on a third-party CPU. He uses it to ask how feasible wider hardware backdoors are.

On Hacker News

HN regulars treat Domas as a favorite hacker and bring this talk up in any discussion of CPU backdoors, hidden instruction sets or processor security.

Recommended by 4 HN people across 3 months · HN mentions 2019–2026

Topics

Security & hackingComputer architecture & CPUs
Search by tags
cpu securityundocumented instructionsvia cpureverse engineeringdef con

What people said

MattSteelblade · 2026-08 · Strong recommendation

I cannot wait for the accompanying Black Hat talk. Christopher Domas is one of my absolute favorite all-time hackers. He does such a fantastic job of explaining his work. Some of my favorite talks of his: - Psychological Warfare in Reverse Engineering [LINK] - The MoVfuscator [LINK] - Hardware Backdoors in redacted x86 [VIDEO]

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daniel-thompson · 2021-08 · Strong recommendation

These links don't work for me, but the videos are on YT: - [VIDEO] - [LINK] And yes, they are spectacular.

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aecsocket · 2026-08 · Recommendation

Holy shit, Christopher Domas is back. I remember watching his Defcon talks on x86 shenanigans[^1][^2] and being amazed at what he's been able to discover. Then he got whisked away by Intel and now drops this. I'm excited. [^1]: [LINK] [^2]: [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by DEFCONConference, played through YouTube.

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