CESH 110 Hardware Bench Craft & Techniques

Bench Craft · 4 days · Assessed

About the course

This is the physical access course in the PCB reverse engineering pathway. Students learn how to handle real hardware at the bench with control, steadiness and repeatability, so they can prepare targets for meaningful analysis. The emphasis is on getting onto boards cleanly, preserving evidence, and avoiding damage that would compromise later work.

Students practise soldering, desoldering, rework, micro-soldering, hot-air use, microscope work, jig-building and magnet-wire attachment. They learn how to tack onto small pads, recover awkward connections, strain-relieve fragile wires, probe test points without slipping, and use the core bench instruments properly: multimeter, oscilloscope, logic analyser and supporting tools.

The course contextualises those skills to the interfaces that matter in hardware security work: UART, SPI, I2C, JTAG and SWD. Students also practise chip handling, chip-off removal, and working around conformal coating, potting, adhesives and tamper protection. By the end, they can prepare, probe and instrument a target board safely, creating the reliable physical access needed for board-level analysis and hardware exploitation.

Want to know what to expect in the classroom? Find out more about our training approach and how we turn technical concepts into practical, hands-on skills.

Skills and topics covered

This list shows the various main topics we cover during the course:

Safe bench setup and target handling
Soldering, desoldering and rework
Micro-soldering to fine-pitch pads and small passives
Hot-air, microscope and hand-tool technique
Magnet-wire attachment and strain relief
Building probing jigs, fixtures and breakouts
Clean test-point probing without board damage
Multimeter use for continuity, voltage and fault checks
Probe and logic analyser connection discipline
Header recovery, pad recovery and awkward-board handling
Chip package handling and chip-off removal practice
Potting, adhesive and conformal-coating removal
Tamper-protection handling without destroying evidence
Producing reliable physical access for later analysis

What will a new trainee gain?

A trainee comes out with genuine bench confidence, able to solder, probe and tap live buses on real hardware instead of only reading about it. That means your new entrants can be trusted with physical targets early, rather than queuing for a senior every time a board needs a wire on it.

What will an experienced team member gain?

An experienced team member sharpens the fiddly skills that rarely get formal practice, micro-soldering, chip-off and getting onto tamper-protected parts without wrecking them. For your organisation that raises the success rate on the hard, expensive targets where a slip means a destroyed sample and a restarted job.

Who this course is for

This course is for anyone who needs practical, hands-on confidence working with PCBs and physical hardware targets. No advanced reverse engineering experience is required, although a basic understanding of electronics and hardware concepts will be useful. It is particularly suited to trainees developing their bench skills and experienced engineers who want structured practice in soldering, rework, probing, chip-off and working with difficult or protected targets.

Not sure where you fit? Find out more about our training audience and prerequisites.

As someone who used to take things apart as a kid just to see how they worked (and usually got told off for it), this course hit the spot. If you’re the same – curious, technical, and always asking how does this actually work? – then you’ll love it. Highly recommended for anyone serious about hardware hacking, reverse engineering, or just unlocking that next level of cyber knowledge.

Jon from Baigent’s Information Security Services

This was a fantastic introduction to Hardware in general. Whether you’re interested in security, RE or just curious about how things work on a hardware level, this is a fantastic hands-on course!

Davey H

Required equipment, tools, and software

You will need a laptop with at least 8GB RAM preferably 16GB, an up to date and stable Operating System, and an Ethernet port / reliable Ethernet dongle.

This laptop must be fully under your control such that you can install tools, dependencies and run arbitrary code. It is often useful to have the ability to run virtual machines and any that we provide will be suitable for importing into VirtualBox. If you use a different hypervisor, ensure that you are confident about importing VMs from OVF file formats. Unfortunately we are unable to pause the course for technical difficulties as a result of the amount of material that we need to cover.

We will use a number of other tools during the course. We put together a goodie bag which directly relates to the activities in the course. The free goodie bag is yours to keep at the end of the course, just make sure you have enough luggage space to take it home. The exact details of what is in it will vary depending on availability but we always make it a useful and interesting collection. We provide any other tools needed to complete all the tasks set, aside from a laptop.

You don’t need to bring anything extra other than your enthusiasm!

Venue and travel information

The classroom

The classroom is well appointed, has good WiFi and hot and cold drinks, it’s spacious, comfortable, has plenty of power sockets, lots of natural light, and is wheelchair friendly. The course is delivered in English and digital versions of slides and handouts will be provided where appropriate.

Food and refreshments

Lunch and morning and afternoon snacks are provided so please make sure you let us know about any dietary needs at least a week before we get started. With the exception of the social night, all other meals are for you to organise. We suggest getting a hotel that provides breakfast, and there are many good restaurants in Manchester for your evening meals. We will try and facilitate additional social arrangements, but, this is down to the individuals present.

Staying in Manchester

There are a number of good and affordable hotels in the Manchester area. We are based in an area called Media City and we are in the same complex as the northern headquarters of the BBC. This means that there are lots of facilities locally and you could choose to not venture into the city centre.

Getting here

If you do choose to look further around there are good tram links that can take you into the city as well as to key travel hubs such as Piccadilly, the national railway station, and Manchester International Airport.

Please check the weather before you travel and bring suitable clothes for the season. If in doubt, assume you will need a waterproof coat and an umbrella. The locals will tell you that Manchester is one of the rainiest places in the world, its not actually true but it does drizzle more than you might expect, even in summer.

Ready to get hands-on with hardware?

Develop the practical bench skills needed to work confidently with real PCB targets. Over four days, you’ll practise soldering, rework, probing, chip-off and instrumentation techniques, learning to create reliable physical access without damaging the hardware or compromising later analysis.

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