Blogger: Eric Maiwald
To hear the media tell it, the recent disclosure of a vulnerability in a popular Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) product means the end of life as we know it. One article uses the headline “Gas Refineries at Defcon 1 as SCADA Exploit Goes Wild.” There are vulnerabilities in SCADA systems…who knew?
Well, we should all have figured it out a while ago (computer systems are used in SCADA networks after all) and I think many people did. Is there any reason to think that SCADA systems would not have vulnerabilities in them?
SCADA systems are used for process control in manufacturing and utilities. They are used to control refineries, power plants, factories, and other highly complex environments. In most cases, the SCADA systems are isolated from the organization’s internal network. The reason for this is obvious – there are serious negative consequences associated with a failure of a SCADA system. SCADA networks themselves also tend to be soft on the inside with few internal controls in place. When serious negative consequences (such as death, serious injury, or the complete failure of the enterprise) are involved, people tend to take precautions. There are business reasons why some connections between the SCADA environment and the organization’s internal network might occur – reporting, control and maintenance, etc. – and organizations have built these connects as required. In most cases, the organization also puts controls in place to limit the access into the SCADA network. These controls might include terminal servers that break the direct connection between the user’s desktop and the SCADA management servers.
Let’s get back to the vulnerability for a minute. Is the vulnerability bad? It does seem like it. The description that I found on the Internet (by Kevin Finisterre) indicates that exploitation of the vulnerability will provide the attacker with a “command prompt with the privileges of the currently running Citect process.” That does seem pretty serious.
However, from an overall risk perspective, we also need to look at the compensating controls (Controls that prevent direct connection to the SCADA network and the SCADA system). Compensating controls will vary from organization to organization so while the vulnerability is very serious, the risk to a particular organization may be less so if the compensating controls are really in place and functioning. The other thing to consider is how to implement the patch to the SCADA system. Since the SCADA system itself is so sensitive, I would be uncomfortable just patching the system without testing the patch. There might also be limitations on when the patch can be applied due to how the system is used (should the SCADA system be patched while the plant is running?).
As with many stories about vulnerabilities and exploits, the situation is serious and we need to do something about it but we need to understand all of the risks involved.
