Tag Archives: APT

Australia Fights Sophisticated State-Backed Copy-Paste Attack with The Essential Eight!

20 June 2020

Reports on a wave of sophisticated nation state sponsored cyber-attacks against Australian government agencies and critical infrastructure operators spread like wild-fire through international media the day before yesterday.

From an IT security point of view, the access vector is really interesting. In Advisory 2020-008 (1) , the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) states that the actor leverages mainly a remote code execution vulnerability in unpatched versions of Telerik UI, a deserialization vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS), a 2019 SharePoint vulnerability, and the 2019 Citrix vulnerability.

The name Copy-Paste for the attacks comes from the actor’s “capability to quickly leverage public exploit proof-of-concepts to target networks of interest and regularly conducts reconnaissance of target networks looking for vulnerable services, potentially maintaining a list of public-facing services to quickly target following future vulnerability releases. The actor has also shown an aptitude for identifying development, test and orphaned services that are not well known or maintained by victim organizations.” (1)

The Essential Eight

The Essential Eight (Click to enlarge)

In the advisory the ACSC recommends some really basic preventive measures like patching or multi-factor authentication. These are two controls of “The Essential Eight”(2). I like the name “The Essential Eight”. It reminds me on the 1960 Western-film “The Magnificent Seven”, reinforced by Chuck Norris 😉

The Essential Eight focus on very basic strategies to reduce the likelihood and the impact of an attack. Without them, UEBA, SIEM, Threat Intelligence, Deep Packet Inspection, PAM, etc. make few sense.

Except of multi-factor authentication, The Essential Eight are part of the feature-rich Windows and Linux OS or already (backup solution) in place. So, only some internal effort and leadership is required to dramatically increase the resilience against cyber-attacks.

The Essential Eight are a prefect weekend reading. Have fun.

References

  1. Advisory 2020-008: Copy-paste compromises – tactics, techniques and procedures used to target multiple Australian networks | Cyber.gov.au [Internet]. [cited 2020 Jun 19]. Available from: https://www.cyber.gov.au/threats/advisory-2020-008-copy-paste-compromises-tactics-techniques-and-procedures-used-target-multiple-australian-networks
  2. Australian Cyber Security Center. Essential Eight Explained | Cyber.gov.au [Internet]. Australian Signals Directorate. 2020 [cited 2020 Jun 19]. Available from: https://www.cyber.gov.au/publications/essential-eight-explained

ComRAT V4 got an upgrade: On the value of Threat Intelligence

30 May 2020

Popular IT security media and threat intelligence services reported this week that the ComRAT V4 malware used by Turla APT got an upgrade. (1)(2)(3)

The big question for all businesses is: Do we have an increased risk resulting from this upgrade? Are the existing security controls still mitigating the risk stemmed from the ComRAT upgrade? Or do we have to upgrade our security controls as well.

The businesses in focus of the Turla APT should answer this question as soon as possible. Detailed information about the feature upgrade as well as the existing security controls are required to answer this question. This is nothing new. “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” says Tzu Sun in the “Art of War” about 500 BC.

Are you prepared to answer this question? Your invest in threat intelligence is uneconomic if you cannot evaluate the threat details in the context of your environment.

What about ComRAT? The way command and control is performed changed. But the primary installation method has not changed: “ComRAT is typically installed via PowerStallion, a lightweight PowerShell backdoor used by Turla to install other backdoors.”(1)

PowerShell 5.0 Icon (5)

PowerShell 5.0 Icon. Picture Credits (5)

So, if you already implemented security controls, that deal with malware which uses PowerShell, your risk will not change. Otherwise, the publication “Securing PowerShell in the Enterprise” (4) of the Australian Cyber Security Center is a good starting point for a systematic approach to PowerShell security.

My advice: Disable PowerShell on all standard user computers. For administrative purposes, use hardened systems without email and internet access and implement PowerShell Endpoints.

Have a great Weekend.

References

  1. Lakshmanan R. New ComRAT Malware Uses Gmail to Receive Commands and Exfiltrate Data [Internet]. The Hacker News. 2020 [zitiert 28. Mai 2020]. Verfügbar unter: https://thehackernews.com/2020/05/gmail-malware-hacker.html

  2. Robinson T. Turla’s ComRAT v4 uses Gmail web UI to receive commands, steal data [Internet]. SC Media. 2020 [zitiert 30. Mai 2020]. Verfügbar unter: https://www.scmagazine.com/home/security-news/malware/turlas-comrat-v4-uses-gmail-web-ui-to-receive-commands-steal-data/

  3. Gatlan S. Russian cyberspies use Gmail to control updated ComRAT malware [Internet]. BleepingComputer. 2020 [zitiert 30. Mai 2020]. Verfügbar unter: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/russian-cyberspies-use-gmail-to-control-updated-comrat-malware/

  4. Australian Cyber Security Center. Securing PowerShell in the Enterprise | Cyber.gov.au [Internet]. Australian Signals Directorate. 2019 [zitiert 6. März 2020]. Verfügbar unter: https://www.cyber.gov.au/publications/securing-powershell-in-the-enterprise

Picture credits

  1. PowerShell 5.0 Icon. Microsoft / Public domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PowerShell_5.0_icon.png

Mean Time to Hardening: The Next-Gen Security Metric falls short in tackling the patching problem

12 January 2020

In report “Mean Time to Hardening: The Next-Gen Security Metric”,(1) published at 12/30/2019 on ThreatPost, Richard Melick proposes a new metric MMTH (Mean time to Hardening) to tackle the patch problem. I like the 24/72 MTTH approach. But when it comes to attacks of APTs on critical infrastructures this approach is from my point of view not effective.

Let me illustrate this with an example. CVE-2017-5638, a remote command execution vulnerability in the Apache Struts framework, was used in the Equifax attack (2) in 2017. In the case of remote command execution vulnerabilities, especially if the systems are operated in the DMZ, the 24/72 MTTH approach is the best strategy to survive. But let us look on the timeline.

NVD Exploit-DB Exploit-DB
CVE-2017-5638 EDB-ID 41570 EDB-ID 41614
Published NDV Published Exploit-DB Published Exploit-DB
3/11/2017 3/7/2017 3/15/2017

Exploit 41570 was published 4 days before the CVE was published. The 24/72 MTTH strategy will fail in this case. Exploit 41614 was published 4 days after the CVE was published, so the 24/72 MTTH strategy is successful.

Figure 1

Figure 1

This is not an isolated case. Between 2013 and 2019 56% of the exploits were published before or at the same day the vulnerability was published in the NVD. For mapping the exploits in the Exploit-DB to the CVEs the NVD reference map for the Exploit-DB (3) is used. Figure 2 shows the details in the range 30 days before and after the CVE publication date.

Figure 2

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 3

34% of the exploits for Remote Code/Command Execution (RxE) vulnerabilities like CVE-2017-5638 or CVE-2017-0144 (WannaCry) were published before or at the same day the vulnerability was published. Figure 4 shows the details. RxEs are selected from the NVD as follows: CVSS V2.0: Attack Vector: Network, Attack Complexity: Low + Medium, Authentication: None, Loss of Integrity: Complete, Keywords “remote code execution” or “exec arbitrary”.

Figure 4

Figure 4

So, the 24/72 MMTH approach falls short if the exploit is published before the vulnerability.

Please keep in mind that we only investigated published vulnerabilities and exploits. We can expect, that many yet unpublished, and unused, vulnerabilities exist in the arsenals of the APTs.

In the case of critical infrastructures, we are well advised to invest in solutions which increase the resilience against cyber-attacks. A simple Apparmor profile would probably have prevented the attack on Equifax. Whitelisting solutions should be considered in environments where industrial control systems are operated. This makes the 24/72 MTTH approach to patching not obsolete. We just buy time.

Have a great week.

References

  1. Melick R. Mean Time to Hardening: The Next-Gen Security Metric [Internet]. threatpost. 2019 [cited 2020 Jan 12]. Available from: https://threatpost.com/mean-time-hardening-next-gen-security-metric/151402/
  2. Brook C. Equifax Confirms March Struts Vulnerability Behind Breach [Internet]. threatpost. 2017 [cited 2020 Jan 12]. Available from: https://threatpost.com/equifax-confirms-march-struts-vulnerability-behind-breach/127975/
  3. NIST NVD. CVE – CVE Reference Map for Source EXPLOIT-DB [Internet]. [cited 2020 Jan 12]. Available from: https://cve.mitre.org/data/refs/refmap/source-EXPLOIT-DB.html

Plundervolt. Don’t panic!

16 December 2019

Last Tuesday, Intel (1) published a patch for a new hardware vulnerability dubbed Plundervolt (CVE-2019-11157). As always with hardware vulnerabilities, Plundervolt got a lot of attention in the media.(2)(3)(4) A Google search for “plundervolt intel” shows about 167.000 hits as of today. The vulnerability was detected by a research team lead by Kit Murdock (5) some month ago.

In parallel, Microsoft published a patch for the privilege escalation vulnerability CVE-2019-1458.(6) CVE-2019-1458 is actively used in attacks (7), so it also got some media attention (Google search “CVE-2019-1458”: 88.000 hits as of today).

Plundervolt logo.

Plundervolt logo.

From my point of view, hardware vulnerabilities are always somewhat overvalued, especially in terms of their benefit in cyber operations. The vulnerabilities named RyzenFall, FallOut, Chimera and MasterKey in AMD processors, which were discovered last year, are maybe the best examples.(8) So, lets take a closer look on PlunderVolt and CVE-2019-1458.

The table below shows the CVSS V3.1 Severity for the vulnerabilities.

Plundervolt CVE-2019-1458 comparison

Plundervolt / CVE-2019-1458 comparison

The main difference is in the Privileges Required (PR) to exploit the vulnerability. For Plundervolt, Murdock et al. “assume the standard Intel SGX adversary model where the attacker has full control over all software running outside the enclave (including privileged system software such as operating system and BIOS).”(5) That means that the system must already be fully compromised before Plundervolt can be exploited.

In contrast, CVE-2019-1458 allows the attacker to acquire high privileges on a system once he hijacked a standard user account. So, by exploiting CVE-2019-1458 the attacker sets up the environment to exploit Plundervolt.

From an attacker’s point of view, CVE-2019-1458 is more valuable than Plundervolt. Once one system is compromised, the attacker can use it as base of operations for the exploration of the victim’s network. In the worst case, the Active Directory is compromised within some minutes, so the attacker has access to all secrets, or he can push ransomware to all computers.

For organized crime and APTs, CVE-2019-1458 is a universally exploitable tool to achieve goals.

Plundervolt gets interesting if the attacker is interested in encryption key details which are used internally only, for example in Transparent Database Encryption (TDE) or in trusted execution environments. Murdock et al. “demonstrate the effectiveness of our attacks by injecting faults into Intel’s RSA-CRT and AES-NI implementations running in an SGX enclave, and we reconstruct full cryptographic keys with negligible computational efforts.”(5) In the worst case, this results in the loss of all data in a TDE secured database, since vendors use Intel’s AES-NI on-chip implementation to speed up cryptographic computations.

So, Plundervolt is interesting for organized crime and APTs when it comes to industrial espionage or in attacks against targets which are relevant for national security.

Fortunately, the time frame for exploitation is short. The patch for CVE-2019-1458 will be automatically rolled out through the WSUS infrastructure within the next weeks. Plundervolt should be patched, with high priority on critical systems, if a company is target of espionage or operates critical infrastructures.

Do you know your threat profile and critical systems? Without this knowledge efficient vulnerability management is not possible. Not sure? So, take it as a New Year’s resolution…

References

  1. Intel Security Center. INTEL-SA-00289 [Internet]. Intel Security Center. 2019 [cited 2019 Dec 13]. Available from: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/security-center/advisory/intel-sa-00289.html
  2. Gatlan S. Intel Patches Plundervolt, High Severity Issues in Platform Update [Internet]. BleepingComputer. 2019 [cited 2019 Dec 13]. Available from: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/intel-patches-plundervolt-high-severity-issues-in-platform-update/
  3. O’Donnell L. Modern Intel CPUs Plagued By Plundervolt Attack | Threatpost [Internet]. threatpost. 2019 [cited 2019 Dec 13]. Available from: https://threatpost.com/intel-cpus-plundervolt-attack/151006/
  4. Khandelwal S. New PlunderVolt Attack Targets Intel SGX Enclaves by Tweaking CPU Voltage [Internet]. The Hacker News. 2019 [cited 2019 Dec 13]. Available from: https://thehackernews.com/2019/12/intel-sgx-voltage-attack.html
  5. Murdock K, Oswald D, Garcia FD, Van Bulck J, Gruss D, Piessens F. Plundervolt: Software-based Fault Injection Attacks against Intel SGX}. In: Proceedings of the 41st IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P’20) [Internet]. San Francisco, CA; 2019 [cited 2019 Dec 13]. Available from: https://plundervolt.com/
  6. MSRC. CVE-2019-1458 | Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability [Internet]. Microsoft Security. 2019 [cited 2019 Dec 16]. Available from: https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2019-1458
  7. Kaspersky Global Research and Analysis Team. Windows 0-day exploit CVE-2019-1458 used in Operation WizardOpium | Securelist [Internet]. SECURELIST. 2019 [cited 2019 Dec 16]. Available from: https://securelist.com/windows-0-day-exploit-cve-2019-1458-used-in-operation-wizardopium/95432/
  8. Cimpanu C. AMD Confirms RyzenFall, MasterKey, Fallout, and Chimera Vulnerabilities [Internet]. BleepingComputer. 2018 [cited 2019 Dec 16]. Available from: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/hardware/amd-confirms-ryzenfall-masterkey-fallout-and-chimera-vulnerabilities/

Application control solutions for protecting critical infrastructures

13 October 2019

Application Control Solutions (ACS) are easy to deploy and manage protective security controls in process automation. From my point of view, they are essential when it comes to critical infrastructures. The major SCADA vendors recommend and certify them for use with their product suites.

Rick Gorskie, Global Sales Manager Cybersecurity at Emerson Automation Solutions, recommends “using both solutions for an effective “one-two” punch against malware infection. Using applications whitelisting to protect from “zero-day” attacks as well as using antivirus blacklisting to scan for malware yields the best result.”(1)

Schneider Electric recommends the application control for their Power SCADA systems: “Power SCADA has been validated with the McAfee Application Control whitelisting application. Power SCADA and McAfee whitelisting can make your system more resilient to zero-day threats.”(2)

In addition to the protection against zero-days, application control allows to reduce the patch frequency and to extent the life of legacy systems.

The ACS kicks in during the exploitation phase of the Cyber Kill Chain. It checks every object at execution time whether it is known in the white list. Since new malware is not on the list, ACS just blocks the execution. This is a plain, but very effective approach.

Cyber Kill Chain - Application Control Solutions

Cyber Kill Chain – Application Control Solutions

This works for file-less malware like Nodersok (3) as well as for file-based malware like Reductor (4) or COMpfun (5). Even crypto worms like WannaCry are blocked.

In the case of COMpfun, for example, two DLLs are loaded into the users AppData directory. Both DLLs are not on the white list, so the execution is blocked although they are defined as COM objects.

Reductor uses two delivery methods, COMpfun and infected software installers. If COMpfun is used for delivery, the ACS blocks the malware.

But if the Reductor is delivered through infected software installers, ACSs will not work because they have their Achilles heels.

ACSs must be suspended during deployment or update of software.

A malware, for example a trojan disguised as part of a software suite, will become a legitimate program after the ACS is enforced again. Thus, the malware will never be blocked because it’s on the white list.

ACSs allow exceptions.

Some SCADA vendors request exceptions for the execution of some of their software tools. If malicious actors exploit these exceptions, they can inject malware outside regular installations.

So, we have a residual risk, depending on the threat actor and the environment.

For non-critical infrastructures, ACSs provides great protection against all threat actors. But in the case of critical infrastructures, APT and, to some extent, cyber criminals have the resources and the know how to exploit the Achilles heels of ACSs.

Additional security controls must be implemented to reduce this risk. Operators and engineering service providers must work together to solve this issue.

This may include an extended integrity check of all software before installation in the SCADA network and the encryption of all media during transport.

By the way, ACSs provide effective protection against zero-days only if they are not suspended. So, it’s a good idea to check regularly if the ACS agents are operated in enforced mode on the systems.

Have a great week.

References

  1. Gorskie R. Should You Be Using Application Whitelisting? [Internet]. Emerson Exchange 365. 2017 [zitiert 22. September 2019]. Verfügbar unter: https://emersonexchange365.com/products/control-safety-systems/f/deltav-discussions-questions/6792/should-you-be-using-application-whitelisting
  2. Schneider Electric. Power SCADA Operation 9.0 System Guide | Schneider Electric [Internet]. 2019 [zitiert 22. September 2019]. Verfügbar unter: https://www.schneider-electric.com/en/download/document/PowerSCADAOperationSystemGuide/
  3. Microsoft. Bring your own LOLBin: Multi-stage, fileless Nodersok campaign delivers rare Node.js-based malware [Internet]. Microsoft Security. 2019 [zitiert 28. September 2019]. Verfügbar unter: https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2019/09/26/bring-your-own-lolbin-multi-stage-fileless-nodersok-campaign-delivers-rare-node-js-based-malware/
  4. GReAT. COMpfun successor Reductor infects files on the fly to compromise TLS traffic | Securelist [Internet]. Kaspersky Securelist. 2019 [zitiert 12. Oktober 2019]. Verfügbar unter: https://securelist.com/compfun-successor-reductor/93633/
  5. G Data. COM Object hijacking: the discreet way of persistence [Internet]. G Data Blog. 2014 [zitiert 12. Oktober 2019]. Verfügbar unter: https://www.gdatasoftware.com/blog/2014/10/23941-com-object-hijacking-the-discreet-way-of-persistence

New LYCEUM Threat Group targets Oil and Gas firms. Don’t panic! Enforce 2 Step Verification!

29 August 2019

Lindsey O’Donnell’s report (1) on a new APT named LYCEUM is well worth reading.  LYCEUM targets oil and gas firms in the middle east. The group leverages PowerShell once they created a foothold on computers in the victim’s network to exfiltrate company secrets. PowerShell is a good choice because the attackers can go undetected for a long time.

For launching the attack, LYCEUM draws on industry attack standards like password spraying: “LYCEUM initially accesses an organization using account credentials obtained via password spraying or brute-force attacks. Using compromised accounts, the threat actors send spearphishing emails with malicious Excel attachments to deliver the DanBot malware, which subsequently deploys post-intrusion tools.”(2)

The group aims at company mail accounts hosted by cloud service providers. Why? Credibility matters most in [spear] phishing attacks. A spear phishing email on a popular topic, send from a company account has a very high level of credibility and increases the attack’s probability of success.

This increase in credibility justifies the effort required for collecting email addresses from OSINT sources. Password spraying is then used to get a valid password for login with the victim’s account to the cloud service.

Here, the industry defense standard against password attacks, 2SV (Two Step Verification) or MFA (Multiple Factor Authentication), comes into play.

Yubikey for 2 Step Verification. Own work.

On 27 August, Catalin Cimpanu reported on ZDNet that Microsoft sees 300 million fraudulent sign-in attempts to O365 every day.(3) Alex Weinert, Group Program Manager for Identity Security and Protection at Microsoft, explained that “enabling a multi-factor authentication solutions blocks 99.9% of these unauthorized login attempts, even if hackers have a copy of a user’s current password.“(3)

So, by enforcing 2SV/MFA for login to all company cloud services we can stop all threat actors which use similar password mining technologies, including LYCEUM.

Alastair MacGibbon, National Security Advisor, Australian Cyber Security Center, shows the direction:

“Cyber security is about risk management. You can’t eliminate risk, but you can strengthen your defences to reduce the likelihood of the risk being realised, and the harm caused when it is.”

Let’s get started with 2SV. We have no time to waste.

References

  1. O’Donnell L. New Threat Group Found Targeting Critical Infrastructure Firms With Spear [Internet]. threatpost. 2019 [cited 2019 Aug 27]. Available from: https://threatpost.com/oil-and-gas-firms-targeted-by-new-lyceum-threat-group/147705/
  2. Secureworks Counter Threat Unit. Cyber Threat Group LYCEUM Takes Center Stage in Middle East Campaign [Internet]. Secureworks. 2019 [cited 2019 Aug 27]. Available from: https://www.secureworks.com/blog/lyceum-takes-center-stage-in-middle-east-campaign
  3. Cimpanu C. Microsoft: Using multi-factor authentication blocks 99.9% of account hacks [Internet]. ZDNet. [cited 2019 Aug 28]. Available from: https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-using-multi-factor-authentication-blocks-99-9-of-account-hacks/

Rogue 7. A new attack on Simatic S7 PLCs. Who should be concerned?

18 August 2019

Pierluigi Paganini’s post (1) on Rogue 7, which popped-up in my LinkedIn news feed last Tuesday, immediately caught my attention. And troubled me somewhat because I am living a mile north from one of the largest German chemical industrial parks where lots of Simatic S7-1200 and S7-1500 PLCs are in operations.

The facts.

A group of Israeli security researchers managed to compromise PLCs of the Simatic S7-1200 and S7-1500 series. They presented the results at the Black Hat 2019 (2). For more technical details see the accompanying conference paper (3).

The SIMATIC developers learned from the past attacks on the S7 protocol, and integrated cryptographic protection in the latest version of the protocol. This includes a key exchange protocol for secure session set-up between the TIA and the PLC, message integrity protection, and payload encryption.

The Israeli researchers re-engineered the protocol and found some design weaknesses in the implementation which they used to execute start/stop attacks on the PLC, program download and stealth program injection attacks.

Countermeasures.

To fix the design flaws in the protocol will take some time.

With CPU access protection (4), the design weaknesses can be mitigated. Unfortunately, the default is “No Protection”, that is,” the hardware configuration and the blocks can be read and changed by all users”. So, it’s time to switch CPU access protection on, at least for high risk environments, e.g. if the PLC is directly accessible from the internet and port 102 is open.

Should we be concerned, or, to put in another way: Who should be concerned?

That depends on the target industry and the threat actor.

Critical Infrastructures.

IEC 62443 request’s that PLCs should be isolated in a separate network zone inside the SCADA partition of the production network. In the best case, communication is allowed from systems in the SCADA partition to the PLC only. If the operator follows this defense in depth strategy during production network build the risk of Rogue 7 style attack on a PLC is low.

Fortunately, operators of critical infrastructures are forced by regulations to implement a defense in depth strategy. But the effort for implementation and operation of an IEC 62443 compliant network is high. To reduce the effort, even large deviations from the IEC 62443 requirements are accepted.

Protection against APTs: The more the better? Own work. Paris 2019.

Protection against APTs: The more the better? Own work. Paris 2019.

State guided or sponsored threat actors, also called APT (Advanced Persistent Threat), and to a certain extent Organized Crime leverage these deviations in attacks on critical infrastructures. Hacktivists and Script Kiddies can be neglected because they lack the specific network infiltration and SIMATIC S7 know how.

Recall Triton, the attack on a Schneider Electric Triconex safety controller in 2017. The attackers (APT) compromised the Petro Rabigh corporate network in 2014. “From there, they eventually found a way into the plant’s own network, most likely through a hole in a poorly configured digital firewall that was supposed to stop unauthorized access.”(5)

Petro Rabigh Chemical Plant.

In June 2017, the first unplanned shutdown of a safety controller took place. Finally, on Aug. 4, 2017, at 7:43 p.m., two safety controllers brought parts of the Petro Rabigh complex offline to prevent a gas release and explosion.(6)

The attackers compromised also the PLC. “But as safety devices took extraordinary steps, control room engineers working the weekend shift spotted nothing out of the ordinary, either on their computer screens or out on the plant floor.”(6)

This describes exactly the result of the Rogue 7 program download and stealth program injection attack. The PLC runs the malicious code while the operator believes that everything is in order.

Other production environments.

The S7 protocol uses port 102 for accessing the PLC from the TIA portal, the HMI and the engineering station. The Rouge TIA or the Rogue Engineering station must connect to this port on the PLC for running the start/stop attack or the program download attack. If this port is accessible from the network, in the worst case from the internet, APTs and Organized Crime can easily compromise the PLCs. The risk that Hacktivists or Script Kiddies compromise PLCs is low because they lack of the very specific SIMATIC S7 know how.

How big is the problem? A quick check on Shodan (query: SIMATIC CPU-1200, executed 8/18/2019) shows that about 350 S7-1200 systems are directly connected to the internet, thereof only few with Port 102 open. So, no reason to panic. Most of the operators have already implemented the Siemens recommendations on ICS security.

Summary

I welcome the fact that the Israeli security researchers published the weaknesses in the S7 protocol. We can assume, that, like EternalBlue, these weaknesses are already available in stand-by in the arsenals of intelligence agencies around the globe. So, we can prepare for the next leak and, hopefully, prevent a future attack of WannaCry extent.

Direct actions are required to evaluate the current risk.

  • Check the firewall rule base to make sure, that the S7 protocol port 102 is not open for systems outside the SCADA network partition or the internet.
  • Evaluate the risk of activating CPU access protection. If acceptable, update your operating procedures, train the staff, and active CPU access protection.

For critical infrastructure operators.

  • Document every deviation from the IEC 62443 concept. Evaluate the risk with regards to the capabilities of APT and Organized Crime. Take effective protective means if the risk is not acceptable.

Have a great week.

References

  1. Paganini P. Boffins hacked Siemens Simatic S7, most secure controllers in the industry [Internet]. Security Affairs. 2019 [cited 2019 Aug 16]. Available from: https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/89720/hacking/siemens-simatic-s7-hack.html
  2. Biham E, Bitan S, Carmel A, Dankner A, Malin U, Wool A. PPT: Rogue7: Rogue Engineering-Station attacks on S7 Simatic PLCs [Internet]. Powerpoint Presentation presented at: Black Hat USA 2019; 2019 Aug 8 [cited 2019 Aug 16]; Mandalay Bay / Las Vegas. Available from: https://i.blackhat.com/USA-19/Thursday/us-19-Bitan-Rogue7-Rogue-Engineering-Station-Attacks-On-S7-Simatic-PLCs.pdf
  3. Biham E, Bitan S, Carmel A, Dankner A, Malin U, Wool A. Rogue7: Rogue Engineering-Station attacks on S7 Simatic PLCs. In Mandalay Bay / Las Vegas; 2019 [cited 2019 Aug 16]. Available from: https://i.blackhat.com/USA-19/Thursday/us-19-Bitan-Rogue7-Rogue-Engineering-Station-Attacks-On-S7-Simatic-PLCs-wp.pdf
  4. Siemens AG. Simatic S7-1500 Security [Internet]. Siemens AG; 2013 [cited 2019 Aug 16]. Available from: https://www.automation.siemens.com/salesmaterial-as/interactive-manuals/getting-started_simatic-s7-1500/documents/EN/sec_en.pdf
  5. Giles M. Triton is the world’s most murderous malware, and it’s spreading [Internet]. MIT Technology Review. 2019 [cited 2019 May 11]. Available from: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613054/cybersecurity-critical-infrastructure-triton-malware/
  6. Sobczak B. SECURITY: The inside story of the world’s most dangerous malware [Internet]. 2019 [cited 2019 May 11]. Available from: https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060123327

Concerns about using open source libraries from an IT security point of view

18 December 2017

Some days ago I participated in a discussion about the necessity of using open source libraries in industrial software development and the data scientist workbench. IT security is often perceived as spoil sport in such discussions …

To be honest, I like open software. I prefer for example Firefox on Windows 10 because the configuration of Edge is really annoying. However, when it comes to the use of open software libraries in scientific or industrial software development projects or by data scientists I have two major concerns:

1. I have just no clue what the open software libraries do in addition to their intended use.

This sounds a bit paranoid. The question is:

Can we make sure, that no malicious code snippets are hidden in an open software library which send the company’s secrets to a cyber criminal’s command and control server, or which encrypt all data?

In my opinion this is not possible. Reviewing e.g. the 300 thousand lines of code of the OpenSSL-1.0.2 project is a herculean task, which has to be repeated for every patch and release. We can automate the software review process with advanced code analyzers. With such analyzers, we can make sure that open source code has no or few critical errors. But analyzers cannot find malicious code snippets, they just make sure that such snippets cause no critical errors during program execution.

Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) solutions may detect malicious behavior. But when a developer or data scientist includes open software into his code, the threat type changes from external to insider threat, thus APT solutions are no longer effective.

Eventually, we have to trust the developers of open software. Thus, the use of open software depends largely on the risk appetite of an organization.

2. I have no idea how to fix vulnerabilities in software which uses open software libraries.

Firefox gets security patches immediately after vulnerabilities are published. For example, the remote code execution vulnerability CVE-2017-7827, published 11/15/2017, was patched on the morning of 11/17/2017. When I logged in to my Linux box in the evening, even a patch for the Firefox ESR version was installed.

The OpenSSL-1.0.2 library mentioned above can be used potentially in many applications, in the worst case, some of them may be connected directly to the internet. The developers of Firefox take care of security bugs in this library. Who cares in the case of self-developed software? And how fast? Just remember the Equifax data breach some months ago. The reason for this really costly data breach was an unpatched vulnerability in the Apache Struts framework …

The focus of open software developers is innovation. Thus, the use of open software will be a major driver in the digital transformation, and we should foster this use to stay at the cutting edge of digital transformation.

Nevertheless, we must be aware of the risks of this use and take proper precautions for their mitigation.

Have a great week.