Getting started with the “Proxmark 3 Easy”

2 min readAug 30, 2023

The Proxmark 3 Easy is a simple RFID pen-testing tool. With the Proxmark you can sniff, read, and clone RFID(Radio Frequency Identification) tags. It has wide support for a lot of cards.

This tutorial is a bit of a summary of several Proxmark installation guides. I had a bit of trouble installing the firmware and getting the Proxmark 3 Easy up and running. This was tested on a VM(virtual box) with the latest Kali Linux and the Proxmark 3 Easy 512kb.

Requirements:

Kali Linux(possible on a VM)
Proxmark 3 Easy 512kb

🚀Getting started

Start with updating the package registry

sudo apt-get update

Install all the required packages

sudo apt-get install git ca-certificates build-essential pkg-config libreadline-dev gcc-arm-none-eabi libnewlib-dev qtbase5-dev libbz2-dev libclang-dev libssl-dev

Clone the proxmark3 github repo

git clone https://github.com/RfidResearchGroup/proxmark3.git

Go to the proxmark3 folder

cd proxmark3

Update the platform file

Open Makefile.platform and change the Platform parameter. Set the platform to `PM3GENERIC` instead of “PM3RDV4”. This makes sure we build for the “Easy” version of Proxmark.

PLATFORM=PM3GENERIC

Build

make clean && make all

Install

sudo make install

⚠ Disable modem manager

Important, to make sure the modem manager is disabled or removed. When the modem manager is running and the proxmark 3 is getting flashed this could cause a brick of the proxmark3.

Remove the modem manager:

sudo apt remove modemmanager

Disable the modem manager:

sudo systemctl stop ModemManager
sudo systemctl disable ModemManager

Install the firmware

Before we can work with the proxmark3 Easy we need to make sure that the firmware and the client are on the same version.

Install the bootrom

./pm3-flash-bootrom

Install the full image

./pm3-flash-fullimage

🧙🏻‍♂️Taking it out for a spin

Startup proxmark

pm3

Search for low-frequency RFID cards

lf search

Troubleshooting

I had a problem that the device was not detected. Press and hold the button on the Proxmark 3 Easy to make the OS detect the device.