Why Metalware?

What is Metalware?

Metalware is an automated firmware fuzzing platform for embedded systems. It operates directly on firmware binaries, emulating their execution to uncover hidden vulnerabilities before attackers can exploit them. Our platform targets microcontroller firmware and uses intelligent automation to drive the firmware through various code paths, systematically testing for defects.

What Makes Metalware Different?

Unlike traditional fuzzing solutions that often require manual test harnesses or instrumentation of code, Metalware is “plug-and-play.” It eliminates the need for custom harnesses, allowing fuzzing to start on a new firmware with minimal setup. This is a major advantage given that fuzzing embedded firmware has historically been challenging – on-device tests are slow and lack feedback, while pure black-box tests miss many crashes.

Metalware’s approach of full-device emulation and automated input generation accelerates firmware analysis by up to 10x faster than manual reverse engineering methods. It automatically extracts firmware from device images and begins fuzzing without human intervention, something traditional fuzzers (like AFL or libFuzzer) would require significant engineering to achieve on bare-metal firmware. Additionally, Metalware leverages register-level and interrupt-level fuzzing to simulate hardware events, which is very different than typical file or network input fuzzing. This means it can exercise parts of firmware code (e.g. interrupt service routines, sensor-handling logic) that other fuzzers would overlook.

Read

How does Metalware Work? for a deep dive on our differentiating technology.

Why Does Automated Firmware Fuzzing Matter?

Firmware has become a prime target for cyberattacks in recent years. Over 82% of enterprises have reported at least one firmware attack in the past two years, with firmware incidents rising 500% over four years.

High-profile malware like Stuxnet (which disrupted industrial controllers) and Mirai (which hijacked IoT devices) exploited firmware weaknesses to cause real-world damage. These trends show that vulnerabilities in low-level device software can lead to catastrophic failures, data breaches, or safety hazards. Yet, firmware is often overlooked by traditional security testing due to its complexity (diverse hardware, closed-source code, limited computing resources).

This is where Metalware’s full automation is critical: it bridges a gap in the security stack by continuously testing the firmware layer, which otherwise remains a blind spot. Automated firmware fuzzing enables a proactive security posture – it finds and helps fix bugs early in the development lifecycle, rather than after products are deployed. This reduces the risk of costly recalls or patching campaigns later on.

It also helps organizations meet emerging regulatory demands: new standards (e.g. U.S. Executive Order 14028 and the EU Cyber Resilience Act) mandate stringent firmware security measures, making proactive testing essential. Read

Industry Compliance & Regulatory Requirements for more information on regulatory requirements.

Fully automated fuzzing of firmware ensures that the lowest-level software in a device is as rigorously tested as the applications and networks above it, closing a critical security gap.