World-First SEM-based Recovery of Crash EDR Data from the EEPROM of a Severely Damaged SRS Module Using CrashScan

Computer Science > Cryptography and Security [Submitted on 10 Aug 2026] World-First SEM-based Recovery of Crash EDR Data from the EEPROM of a Severely Damaged SRS Module Using CrashScan Sergei Skorobogatov, Peter Vertal This paper introduces fully working and affordable approach to data recovery from automotive SRS (airbag control) module after permanent failure of its data storage memory chip. All essential information was successfully extracted with 100% success rate from a real SRS module after severe accident which resulted in both its Processor and Flash EEPROM chip electrically damaged with visible holes in their packages. Further investigation revealed that the damage was likely caused by overvoltage and subsequent high-current-flow through silicon die of chips. This not only caused some internal metal wires to melt and evaporate but also caused partial evaporation of silicon substrate and the created cavity was filled with melted gold from a bonding wire. This reveals the nature of the failure with local temperatures exceeding 3000°C. Despite to the fact that the on-chip EEPROM array was only a few hundred micrometers away from the damaged area, it did not lose any single bit of information. This proved the approach to be resilient for successful data recovery from severely damaged devices in the future. With the donor unit containing the recovered data, standard bench-top EDR extraction was performed using Collision Sciences CrashScan, yielding a full EDR report. The forensic significance of the recovered data, the technical novelty of the methodology, and the complete accident reconstruction are presented and discussed. Until now, if because of an accident the memory chip was damaged, there was no feasible or affordable solution for full data extraction or recovery. With the use of innovative and proprietary sample preparation and imaging techniques, it became possible to extract and verify all the data stored inside chips after permanent mechanical, electrical or fire damage. This could help not only automotive but also medical, aviation and aerospace industries. Comments: 11 pages, 19 figures, 3 tables Subjects: Cryptography and Security (cs.CR) Cite as: arXiv:2608.10152 [cs.CR]   (or arXiv:2608.10152v1 [cs.CR] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.10152 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Sergei Skorobogatov [view email] [v1] Mon, 10 Aug 2026 19:09:41 UTC (1,930 KB) Access Paper: view license Current browse context: cs.CR < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-08 Change to browse by: cs References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)