Hey security researchers!
I've released BareMetal-RAM-Dumper — a low-level x86 utility for dumping physical RAM directly to disk, designed for Cold Boot Attack research.
What it does: • Custom 512-byte bootloader (no OS needed) • Boots via BIOS Legacy CSM • Switches to Unreal Mode to access 32-bit physical memory • Dumps RAM in 32KB chunks directly to USB drive • BIOS INT 0x15 E820 for safe memory map parsing • Real-time progress indicator
Cold Boot Attack Use Case: Freeze a laptop's RAM to -60°C → quickly reboot from USB → capture full memory contents for forensic analysis & crypto key recovery
How it works: 1. Stage1: 512-byte boot sector (loads Stage2 via INT 0x13) 2. Stage2: Main logic (memory detection, unreal mode, disk writes) 3. Writes to LBA 64+ on boot drive
Warning: This overwrites data starting at sector 64! Use a dedicated blank USB.
Built with pure Assembly (NASM) — no bloat, direct hardware access
GitHub: https://github.com/pIat0n/BareMetal-RAM-Dumper License: AGPL-3.0
Perfect for: Forensic researchers Security auditors testing cold boot resilience Students learning low-level x86 Penetration testers
Feedback & improvements welcome!
interesting stuff, never tried this specifically. you could try to adapt it to uefi too, edk2 is tricky to work with but not too hard to do it.
it might make it more easy for ppl to play with since most modern machines dont come with BIOS anymore.
uefi might trample more ram during its init but its not a lot of memory.