38C3: Blinkencity, radio controlling street lamps and power plants [video]

Post by randunel » Sun, Dec 29, 2024, 10:08 AM UTC

jdiez17 wrote: post #9

Eduard wrote: post #5

TL;DR: by law, German power stations are required to "turn off" (taken off the energy grid) when they receive specific radio messages. This is intended for energy grid load balancing. Unfortunately, the message protocol is completely flawed security-wise, which allows malicious actors to control the power station. It would require only a handful of strategically placed senders to control an estimated 20 gigawatt of l…

Just read the SPIEGEL article and I think it’s a pretty balanced report on the positions of both sides. Basically, it comes down to the assertion that you can’t reach a large number of electricity generation plants with “simple radio equipment”. That is the position of EFR, and sadly, the Bundesnetzagentur (the radio communications regulator in Germany). I haven’t watched the talk yet but I think it’s pretty clear to…

Post by jdiez17 » Sun, Dec 29, 2024, 10:19 AM UTC

randunel wrote: post #11

jdiez17 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just read the SPIEGEL article and I think it’s a pretty balanced report on the positions of both sides. Basically, it comes down to the assertion that you can’t reach a large number of electricity generation plants with “simple radio equipment”. That is the position of EFR, and sadly, the Bundesnetzagentur (the radio communications regulator in Germany). I haven’t watched the talk yet but I think it’s pretty clear to…

Insurmountable? How many russian citizens live in Germany? And how many russian fanboys with a non-russian citizenship? Now extend that to neighbouring countries, or the Schengen area.

Post by mindcrime » Sun, Dec 29, 2024, 10:42 AM UTC

pantalaimon wrote: post #3

I can imagine how this went: - We have this protocol to switch the streetlights remotely by modulating a signal on the main - but that's needing expensive hardware and it's cumbersome. Can't we just sent that over radio instead? - There is all this decentralized renewable energy generation, we need a way to switch that off remotely if there is an overload in the grid - hey, we already have that hardware for swtiching…

Post by Hikikomori » Sun, Dec 29, 2024, 11:35 AM UTC

__jonas wrote: post #16

That was an interesting talk! I'm not very familiar with security stuff, but I didn't really get the responsible disclosure thing – is it really unreasonable for this company to ask them not to go public just three months after their initial disclosure? I understand the 'it was known since 2013' thing, but they did also say the company was actively making improvements after the initial disclosure so they were not exa…

Post by happosai » Sun, Dec 29, 2024, 12:14 PM UTC

gorgoiler wrote: post #14

pantalaimon wrote: post #3

I can imagine how this went: - We have this protocol to switch the streetlights remotely by modulating a signal on the main - but that's needing expensive hardware and it's cumbersome. Can't we just sent that over radio instead? - There is all this decentralized renewable energy generation, we need a way to switch that off remotely if there is an overload in the grid - hey, we already have that hardware for swtiching…

I really enjoyed how the payloads are encrypted, but the implementation leaves time synchronization in plaintext. With the street lamps that work to a fixed schedule, all you have to do is reset the time between 12pm and 12am to turn them on and off (the “lamplighter” attack, in the talk.)