ICS-CERT Publishes Five S4 Based Alerts Plus Two Other Alerts

On Friday the DHS ICS-CERT published 7 separate alerts, five of which referenced vulnerabilities that were publicly discussed at Digital Bond’s SCADA Security Scientific Symposium (S4) in Miami, FL. These alerts, combined with a similar alert published on Thursday, may mark just the tip of the iceberg as Dale Peterson noted on the DigitalBond.com blog that 30 students at a HMI hacking class before the actual symposium “were quickly finding 0days using ActiveX and File Format Fuzzing”.

Oh yes, the two other alerts. They were based upon uncoordinated disclosures by the Digital Security Research Group (DSecRG) for systems produced by WellinTech and WAGO.

S4 Alerts

The five S4 alerts issued Friday included a general alert for disclosures made during the Project Basecamp portion of S4. The alert notes that the reported vulnerabilities in multiple vendor products included “buffer overflows, backdoors, weak authentication and encryption, and other vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to take control of the device and interfere or halt the process it controls” (page 1). The four other S4 related alerts dealt with specific vulnerabilities in systems from four separate vendors; those vendors were:

• Rockwell Automation

• Schneider Electric

• Koyo (Note: not a PLC vendor, but an Ethernet vendor that provides communications between PLCs and the actual control system)

• Schweitzer

Project Basecamp was a detailed search for and reporting of vulnerabilities in various PLC’s used by industrial control systems. Dale has become increasingly vocal over the last six months or so about his dissatisfaction at cybersecurity community’s disregard of the consequences of the insecure design of programmable logic controllers (PLC). In both his blog and in any other venue that would listen (or even pretend to listen) he has made it clear that everyone in the control system vendor and researcher community has known for at least 10 years that the basic PLC design has inherent cyber-security flaws that make them vulnerable to attack. These vulnerabilities were made painfully clear in the design of the Stuxnet virus.

Because the Stuxnet worm exploited vulnerabilities in the Siemens PLC, many of the Siemens security flaws have been publicly documented, while the rest of the industry breathed a sigh of relief that their systems weren’t being used by the Iran’s nuclear program. The whole point of Project Basecamp was to formally tell the world that Siemens was not alone in their ‘insecure by design’ problems.

That the world, at least the security professional side, has taken notice cannot be doubted. There has been significant discussions in a number of forums (on LinkedIn.com and on the SCADASec list for instance) and in the cyber related press. Unfortunately, most of that discussion has been about the public disclosure of the vulnerabilities (along with some Metasploit® modules published to aid in the exploit of those vulnerabilities) rather than on the potential effects of the vulnerabilities on real world control systems. Hopefully, the fait accompli provided by Dale and the Basecamp team will eventually allow for a more detailed discussion of the vulnerabilities and how to protect control systems from attack using those vulnerabilities.

ICS-CERT does make a valuable contribution (with a forgivable sideways slap at Project Basecamp) to that inevitable discussion in the general Basecamp alert. They note (page 2):

“This public release increases the potential for cyber attack on these devices, particularly if the devices are connected to the Internet. ICS-CERT reminds users that the use of readily available and generally free search tools (such as SHODAN and ERIPP) significantly reduces time and resources required to identify Internet facing control systems. In turn, hackers can use these tools combined with the exploit modules to identify and attack vulnerable control systems. Conversely, owners and operators can also use these same tools [emphasis added] to audit their assets for unsecured Internet facing devices.”

But, less anyone forget, the Iranian PLCs that were the Stuxnet target were not connected to the Internet, nor were their control systems. Many of the vulnerabilities reported by the Project Basecamp team will allow an attacker to exploit the vulnerabilities without having to target an internet connected PLC; it will require a higher skill level and more system knowledge. There are loads of attackers with the appropriate skills and system knowledge can be easily obtained via social engineering attacks. Internet-isolated control systems (if there are really such things in existence) are not safe from attacks based upon these vulnerabilities.

WellinTech Alert

The WellinTech alert provides initial information on a reported password encryption vulnerability in the KingSCADA product that could allow an attacker to read and use a user password, thus gaining user level access to a control system. Exploiting this vulnerability requires access to the SCADA server.

WAGO Alert

The WAGO alert concerns multiple vulnerabilities in the I/O System 750. The vulnerabilities include:

• Remote firmware download;

• Remote data leakage; and

• Remote access.

Interestingly a DSecRG press release notes that the WAGO disclosure of the 750 series controller vulnerabilities was made in support of Project Basecamp. Additionally the DSecRG web site notes two other control system vulnerabilities released by DSecRG on the same day. One deals with a default password vulnerability on Tecomat PLCs (more Project Basecamp fallout?) and an ActiveX vulnerability on an OPC system. I expect that we’ll see ICS-Alerts on these on Monday.