Security vulnerabilities identified in scada systems
July 2007
SCADA/HMI
The first remotely-exploitable vulnerabilities in supervisory control and data acquisition (scada) systems have been identified by researchers. Five problems have been discovered in the OPC protocol - the object linking and embedding for process control industry standard - which is used to enable plant data to be communicated between control devices made by different manufacturers. Scada technologies are employed to remotely manage the distributed measurement and control systems that form the operational backbone in industrial organisations operating electrical power grids and oil and gas refineries, for example. The vulnerabilities mean that industrial organisations are vulnerable to denial-of-service and performance-reducing attacks. Companies need to act now and take measures to secure their scada systems, as this threat is set to increase, warns Innominate's CEO, Joachim Fietz.
"Concerns regarding the security of scada systems have often been overlooked by IT directors, but the confirmation of five different remotely-exploitable vulnerabilities should set alarm bells ringing," comments Joachim Fietz, CEO, Innominate. "While the situation is currently not critical, ageing operational technologies are being linked to more and more IP-based tools which increases the scope and variety of IT attacks they are exposed too. If an industrialised company's scada systems suffer a denial-of-service attack, the financial losses and damage to reputation are massive. To prevent this potential disaster, we strongly recommend that IT directors implement holistic industrial security measures such as Innominate's mGuard solution."
This article appeared on the InfoWorld website: http://weblog.infoworld.com/zeroday/archives/2007/05/infrastructure.html
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