Support Forums Reveal SCADA Infections 66
chicksdaddy writes "We hear a lot about vulnerabilities in industrial control system (ICS) software. But what about real evidence of compromised SCADA and industrial control systems? According to security researcher Michael Toecker, a consultant at the firm Digital Bond, the evidence for infected systems with links to industrial automation and control systems is right under our eyes: buried in public support forums. Toecker audited support sites like bleepingcomputer.com, picking through data dumps from free malware scanning tools like HijackThis and DDS. He found scans of infected systems that were running specialized ICS software like Schweitzer Engineering Labs (SEL) AcSELerator Software and GE Power's EnerVista Software (used to configure GE electric power protection products). The infected end user systems could be the pathway to compromising critical infrastructure, including electrical infrastructure. 'With access to a protection relay through a laptop, a malicious program could alter settings in the configuration file, inject bad data designed to halt the relay, or even send commands directly to the relay when a connection was made,' Toecker wrote."
Re:I'm confused.. (Score:4, Interesting)
I was not completely clear, but even if you opt for even a simple DIP-8 555, current tech lets us embed a side-saddle microprocessor (4004, 6502, 8086) easily. Unless you pry the top off and scan it, you can't be sure you don't have a trojan horse. It's only a few thousand lines of code for the chip to decide it's in the right place for its payload (running a centrifuge, controlling a missile fin, etc) and then to fail nastily.
We've been doing targeted component sabotage for decades (Russian gas pipelines, Stuxnet, xerox tricks.) Don't trust integrated circuits to be what they claim to be.