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Frequently asked questions about firmware analysis

This article addresses frequent questions about firmware analysis.

Firmware analysis is a tool that analyzes firmware images and provides an understanding of security vulnerabilities in the firmware images.

What types of firmware images does firmware analysis support?

Firmware analysis supports unencrypted images that contain file systems with embedded Linux operating systems. Firmware analysis supports the following file system formats:

  • Android sparse image
  • bzip2 compressed data
  • CPIO ASCII archive, with CRC
  • CPIO ASCII archive, no CRC
  • CramFS filesystem
  • Flattened device tree blob (DTB)
  • EFI GUID partition table
  • EXT file system
  • POSIX tarball archive (GNU)
  • GPG signed data
  • gzip compressed data
  • ISO-9660 primary volume
  • JFFS2 filesystem, big endian
  • JFFS2 filesystem, little endian
  • LZ4 compressed data
  • LZMA compressed data
  • LZOP compressed file
  • DOS master boot record
  • RomFS filesystem
  • SquashFSv4 file system, little endian
  • POSIX tarball archive
  • UBI erase count header
  • UBI file system superblock node
  • UEFI file system
  • xz compressed data
  • YAFFS filesystem, big endian
  • YAFFS filesystem, little endian
  • ZStandard compressed data
  • Zip archive

What SBOM components does firmware analysis detect?

Component Component Component Component
acpid gtk msmtp redis
apache harfbuzz mstpd rp_pppoe
avahi_daemon heimdal ncurses samba
axios hostapd neon sqlite
backbonejs inetutils_telnetd netatalk ssmtp
bash iptables netkit_telnetd strongswan
bftpd jquery netsnmp stunnel
bluetoothd libcurl nettools sudo
busybox libevent nginx tcpdump
bzip2 libexpat nss uclibc
cairo libgcrypt openldap underscorejs
codesys libidn openssh usbutils
coreutils libmicrohttpd openssl util_linux
dhcpd libpcap openvpn vim
dnsmasq libpng openvswitch vsftpd
dropbear libsoup p7zip vuejs
e2fsprogs libvorbis pango wget
element lighttpd pcre wolfssl
extJS lodash pcre2 wpa_supplicant
ffmpeg logrotate perl xinetd
fribidi lua php xl2tpd
gdbserver matrixssl polarssl zebra
gdkpixbuf mbedtls pppd zeptojs
glibc mcproxy proftpd zlib
gmp miniupnpd python
gnutls mit_kerberos radvd
gpg mosquitto readline

Where are the firmware analysis Azure CLI/PowerShell docs?

You can find the documentation for our Azure CLI commands here and the documentation for our Azure PowerShell commands here.

You can also find the Quickstart for our Azure CLI here and the Quickstart for our Azure PowerShell here. To run a Python script using the SDK to upload and analyze firmware images, visit Quickstart: Upload firmware using Python.

Is UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) firmware analysis supported?

Yes. UEFI firmware analysis is supported with a mix of Generally Available (GA) and Preview capabilities.

What is generally available for UEFI firmware analysis?

Firmware analysis provides GA support for detecting and analyzing cryptographic material embedded in UEFI firmware, including:

  • Cryptographic certificates
  • Cryptographic keys

These capabilities are considered stable and fully supported for UEFI firmware.

What UEFI analysis capabilities are in preview?

The following UEFI analysis capabilities are currently provided in Preview and might have limited coverage:

  • SBOM and weakness signals (limited OpenSSL detection and CVE association)
  • Binary hardening attributes (detection of NX / DEP are supported)
  • Extractor path enhancements

Preview results should be interpreted as security signals, not guarantees of vulnerability or protection.

For detailed explanations of UEFI firmware analysis capabilities, limitations, and how to interpret results, see Understanding UEFI firmware analysis capabilities and limitations.

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