Ryan Walker's Flipper Blackhat Is a Powerful Quad-Core Linux-Based Wi-Fi Add-On for the Flipper Zero
A self-contained single-board computer in its own right, the Flipper Blackhat uses the Flipper Zero as a display and user interface.
Maker Ryan Walker has designed a powerful add-on for the popular Flipper Zero multitool-stroke virtual pet, which delivers the ability to carry out security testing of networks through no fewer than three radios: the Flipper Blackhat.
"The Flipper Blackhat is a 100% open-source hardware + software Linux-based Flipper [Zero] add-on that enables Wi-Fi attacks," Walker explains of his creation. "Eventually, the device will be stand-alone, with a Blackberry style keypad, but for now, I'm using the flipper for its battery, IO [Input/Output], and screen."
The Flipper Zero, which entered mass production in 2021, was originally billed as the "multi-tool device for hackers" before Flipper Devices rebranded it as being for "geeks" — though too late to stop the Canadian government calling for a crackdown on its sale. Inspired by the classic Tamagotchi, the Flipper Zero is part virtual dolphin pet and part wireless-and-wired multi-use gadget that allows the user to experiment with sub-gigahertz radio signals, infrared signals, RFID and NFC contactless devices, and more.
What it doesn't do, out of the box, is handle Wi-Fi. Various add-ons, including an official one from Flipper Devices itself, add the missing Wi-Fi connectivity — but Walker's Flipper Blackhat is something different: effectively a surprisingly powerful single-board computer in its own right, using the considerably less computationally powerful Flipper Zero as a display, user input device, and power source.
The board is based around the Allwinner A33 system-on-chip, released in 2014 and designed for use in Android tablets, which gives it four Arm Cortex-A7 cores running at up to 1.8GHz and an Arm Mali-400MP2 graphics processor. To this, Walker has added a Realtek RTL8723DS 2.4GHz Wi-Fi transceiver — with two USB Type-A ports providing room for a bundled 5GHz Realtek RTL8821CU Wi-Fi dongle and, if desired, a third radio of the user's choice. For software, the board runs a tweaked Linux distribution.
"In complete transparency," Walker says of the gadget, "this is a beta device. I know of no hardware bugs, and I've tested it quite well. The Screen has not been tested. Software is still in progress; right now, I'm not selling devices with 100% complete bug-free software; you would be an early adopter and get software updates over the next few months. If you're a hacker and like working on Linux systems (Raspberry Pis, etc…) this device is probably for you."
More information on the Flipper Blackhat is available on Walker's Rootkit Labs store, where boards are up for sale at CHF69 each (around $79); at the time of writing the initial batch had been sold out, but Walker says production is being ramped to meet demand. Board design files are available on GitHub under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, with software available in a separate repository under an unspecified license.
