Tarnovsky figured out a way to break chips that carry a “Trusted Platform Module,” or TPM, designation by essentially spying on them like a phone conversation. Such chips are billed as the industrys most secure and are estimated to be in as many as 100 million personal computers and servers, according to market research firm IDC.

via The Associated Press: Security chip that does encryption in PCs hacked.

Now for the really cool “how’d he do it?” part:

Tarnovsky needed six months to figure out his attack, which requires skill in modifying the tiny parts of the chip without destroying it.

Using off-the-shelf chemicals, Tarnovsky soaked chips in acid to dissolve their hard outer shells. Then he applied rust remover to help take off layers of mesh wiring, to expose the chips’ cores. From there, he had to find the right communication channels to tap into using a very small needle.

The needle allowed him to set up a wiretap and eavesdrop on all the programming instructions as they are sent back and forth between the chip and the computer’s memory. Those instructions hold the secrets to the computer’s encryption, and he didn’t find them encrypted because he was physically inside the chip.

Even once he had done all that, he said he still had to crack the “huge problem” of figuring out how to avoid traps programmed into the chip’s software as an extra layer of defense.

“This chip is mean, man — it’s like a ticking time bomb if you don’t do something right,” Tarnovsky said.