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Water system controllers don't belong on the internet, says ex-NSA chief

theregister.com

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Re: Water system controllers don't belong on the internet, says ex-NSA chief

#121

Post by wolvoleo »

Well yes this is true but air gapping isn't perfect security, it's important to understand that too.

And true air gapping isn't possible because it'll need to be monitored somewhere central so there'll have to be some vpn or mpls whatever. Meaning it can be hacked.

Having it exposed to the public internet is not good practice but should be far from the only layer in its security.

And really, when a PLC is found unfirewalled on the public internet, you can bet that's far from the only security screwup in that infrastructure. If they won't even handle the low hanging fruit.

Re: Water system controllers don't belong on the internet, says ex-NSA chief

#122

Post by nacozarina »

Another vulnerability is natural gas pipeline compressor stations are all internet-connected, often via wireless because they are in remote locations. Simple DOS attack against one will force it to shutdown flow, causing things like power stations to drop offline.

Re: Water system controllers don't belong on the internet, says ex-NSA chief

#123

Post by mapkkk »

judge2020 wrote: post #71
barbazoo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that means you need to at least be physically present then I'd say that's a lot of protection already. Means someone in a foreign country can't simply get lucky fuzzing.

Alternatively, small drones exist, and so do low power devices you could slingshot/shoot into a secure area and set to auto wipe after they've done their job. Maybe could even build it out of biodegradable material so it'll clean up in short time.

hell, you could even fedex them your own remote hands a la LTE modem tied to an rpi.. you could do what you need to by the time someone gets around to opening the box

Re: Water system controllers don't belong on the internet, says ex-NSA chief

#124

Post by throwitaway222 »

closeparen wrote: post #103
judge2020 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, small drones exist, and so do low power devices you could slingshot/shoot into a secure area and set to auto wipe after they've done their job. Maybe could even build it out of biodegradable material so it'll clean up in short time.

If you've got secret agents on enemy soil who can get near targets with drones, you're probably just bombing them.

Modern warfare is sneaky. What's the worst you can do without starting an actual war? Plus what's the point of retaliating if the actual combatant was just "an insane person from another country". IE - There's no way to prove he's working for the CCP or IRGC, for example, maybe he's just a crazy person.

Re: Water system controllers don't belong on the internet, says ex-NSA chief

#125

Post by rurban »

aliasxneo wrote: post #82
coryrc wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relatedly, I made an embedded product. I built a live CD (yes this was a while ago) for my employer with the entire development environment. As long as you can find an x86 machine with CD-ROM you could build, compile, test, and program using the exact environment I did twenty years ago. Maybe today I'd do micropython on ESP32. Download text file from device, edit, upload back on.

There's at least one customer out there who has an RPi with NixOS on it from me. Probably still works to this day. It was the best use of NixOS I think I've ever found.

More probably worst use of NixOS. In embedded we care for every single kb, and don't have tolerance for this kind of space waste management system

Re: Water system controllers don't belong on the internet, says ex-NSA chief

#126

Post by rgblambda »

psunavy03 wrote: post #32
Cider9986 wrote: post #6

>Other countries start securing their water >nsa: what no, stop that

The NSA's job is to collect information, not screw with people's water.

The security vulnerabilities the NSA would use to spy on a system, or even just use as a jumping point to another system, can also be used by bad actors for other purposes, such as screwing with people's water.

Re: Water system controllers don't belong on the internet, says ex-NSA chief

#127

Post by tzs »

hackernud3s wrote: post #109
tedd4u wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oof, that's bad. Iran got burned real bad by Stuxnet, you know they would love to score big with PLC sabotage.

I feel like this is, worst case scenario, people drinking bottled water for a week. It's no stuxnet.

If a municipal water system was down wouldn't it affect all water to residences, not just drinking water?

Would it be feasible for people to flush their toilets with bottled water for a week?

Re: Water system controllers don't belong on the internet, says ex-NSA chief

#128

Post by voakbasda »

rurban wrote: post #125
aliasxneo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's at least one customer out there who has an RPi with NixOS on it from me. Probably still works to this day. It was the best use of NixOS I think I've ever found.

More probably worst use of NixOS. In embedded we care for every single kb, and don't have tolerance for this kind of space waste management system

Embedded means different things. Personally I have a hard time calling anything that runs Linux as embedded, having cut my teeth on microcontrollers.

Re: Water system controllers don't belong on the internet, says ex-NSA chief

#129

Post by KaiserPro »

polishdude20 wrote: post #70
amluto wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another odd observation about the industry. For better or for worse, I inherited a little system controlled by a Fanuc PLC. It had a bug and would occasionally get stuck in a bad state. By some minor miracle, I managed to track down the person who had originally programmed it (now retired and moved out of state), and he emailed me a file and introduced me to his apprentice (who lives in a third state). I found a tria…

The best thing they could do to new PLC's would be to have the src code live alongside the firmware inside. So any new person would be able to open it and reason about it.

Nooooope nope nope.

An entire class of controller with really shit security now (as in scanning a network with PLC controllers has a non-trivial chance of rebooting or freezing any number of devices on the network) trained to just plug USB sticks in?

I understand the idea, and its laudable. But the entire model of PLC security needs root and branches overhaul.

Re: Water system controllers don't belong on the internet, says ex-NSA chief

#130

Post by voakbasda »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #46
elevation wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A colleague of mine transitioned from a senior IC role to manager of a PLC group in the same company. Their methods were just as unsophisticated as you describe, and now he is attempting to evangelize/impose the finer parts of software engineering discipline, such as source control and integration tests (which can be trickier when it requires a hardware test bed.) Bringing some new tools to bear can be a fun job, as…

integration tests (which can be trickier when it requires a hardware test bed.) I use this as a fizzbuzz-type test when I'm interviewing at hardware companies: do they have development hardware in a rack with programmable power supplies and mini-PCs (or similar)? It's a low, low bar for testing, and rules surprisingly many companies. They'll often just have The Guy running manual tests instead.

Wow. I’d kill for even a guy running my hardware tests. Most of my jobs barely seem to leave time to write the code, before it needs to be scraped off my monitor and poured into the customer’s systems. The ones like you describe with actual hardware labs are a dream when contrasted to those nightmares.
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