Tag: cyber attack

RESEARCH | March 9, 2018

Robots Want Bitcoins too!

By Lucas Apa & Cesar Cerrudo

Ransomware attacks have boomed during the last few years, becoming a preferred method for cybercriminals to get monetary profit by encrypting victim information and requiring a ransom to get the information back. The primary ransomware target has always been information. When a victim has no backup of that information, he panics, forced to pay for its return.
(more…)

EDITORIAL | January 31, 2018

Security Theater and the Watch Effect in Third-party Assessments

By Daniel Miessler

Before the facts were in, nearly every journalist and salesperson in infosec was thinking about how to squeeze lemonade from the Equifax breach. Let’s be honest – it was and is a big breach. There are lessons to be learned, but people seemed to have the answers before the facts were available.

It takes time to dissect these situations and early speculation is often wrong. Efforts at attribution and methods take months to understand. So, it’s important to not buy into the hysteria and, instead, seek to gain a clear vision of the actual lessons to be learned. Time and again, these supposed “watershed moments” and “wake-up calls” generate a lot of buzz, but often little long-term effective action to improve operational resilience against cyber threats.


At IOActive we guard against making on-the-spot assumptions. We consider and analyze the actual threats, ever mindful of the “Watch Effect.” The Watch Effect can be simply explained:  you wear a watch long enough, you can’t even feel it.
I won’t go into what third-party assessments Equifax may or may not have had because that’s largely speculation. The company has probably been assessed many times, by many groups with extensive experience in the prevention of cyber threats and the implementation of active defense. And they still experienced a deep impact cyber incursion.

The industry-wide point here is: Everyone is asking everyone else for proof that they’re secure.

The assumption and Watch Effect come in at the point where company executives think their responses to high-level security questions actually mean something.

Well, sure, they do mean something. In the case of questionnaires, you are asking a company to perform a massive amount of tedious work, and, if they respond with those questions filled in, and they don’t make gross errors or say “no” where they should have said “yes”, that probably counts for something.

But the question is how much do we really know about a company’s security by looking at their responses to a security questionnaire?

The answer is, “not much.”

As a company that has been security testing for 20 years now, IOActive has successfully breached even the most advanced cyber defenses across countless companies during penetration tests that were certified backwards and forwards by every group you can imagine. So, the question to ask is, “Do questionnaires help at all? And if so, how much?”
 
Here’s a way to think about that.

At IOActive we conduct full, top-down security reviews of companies that include business risk, crown-jewel defense, and every layer that these pieces touch. Because we know how attackers get in, we measure and test how effective the company is at detecting and responding to cyber events – and use this comprehensive approach to help companies understand how to improve their ability to prevent, detect, and ever so critically, RESPOND to intrusions. Part of that approach includes a series of interviews with everyone from the C-suite to the people watching logs. What we find is frightening.

We are often days or weeks into an assessment before we discover a thread to pull that uncovers a major risk, whether that thread comes from a technical assessment or a person-to-person interview or both.

That’s days—or weeks—of being onsite with full access to the company as an insider.

Here’s where the Watch Effect comes in. Many of the companies have no idea what we’re uncovering or how bad it is because of the Watch Effect. They’re giving us mostly standard answers about their day-to-day, the controls they have in place, etc. It’s not until we pull the thread and start probing technically – as an attacker – that they realize they’re wearing a broken watch.

Then they look down at a set of catastrophic vulnerabilities on their wrist and say, “Oh. That’s a problem.”

So, back to the questionnaire…

If it takes days or weeks for an elite security firm to uncover these vulnerabilities onsite with full cooperation during an INTERNAL assessment, how do you expect to uncover those issues with a form?

You can’t. And you should stop pretending you can. Questionnaires depend far too much upon the capability and knowledge of the person or team filling it out, and often are completed with impartial knowledge. How would one know if a firewall rule were updated improperly to “any/any” in the last week if it is not tested and verified?

To be clear, the problem isn’t that third party assessments only give 2/10 in security assessment value. The problem is that executives THINK it’s giving them 6/10, or 9/10.

It’s that disconnect that’s causing the harm.

Eventually, companies will figure this out. In the meantime, the breaches won’t stop.

Until then, we as technical practitioners can do our best to convince our clients and prospects to understand the value these types of cursory, external glances at a company provide. Very little. So, let’s prioritize appropriately.

EDITORIAL | January 24, 2018

Cryptocurrency and the Interconnected Home

By Neil Haskins

There are many tiny elements to cryptocurrency that are not getting the awareness time they deserve. To start, the very thing that attracts people to cryptocurrency is also the very thing that is seemingly overlooked as a challenge. Cryptocurrencies are not backed by governments or institutions. The transactions allow the trader or investor to operate with anonymity. We have seen a massive increase in the last year of cyber bad guys hiding behind these inconspicuous transactions – ransomware demanding payment in bitcoin; bitcoin ATMs being used by various dealers to effectively clean money.

Because there are few regulations governing crypto trading, we cannot see if cryptocurrency is being used to fund criminal or terrorist activity. There is an ancient funds transfer capability, designed to avoid banks and ledgers called Hawala. Hawala is believed to be the method by which terrorists are able to move money, anonymously, across borders with no governmental controls. Sound like what’s happening with cryptocurrency? There’s an old saying in law enforcement – follow the money. Good luck with that one.

Many people don’t realize that cryptocurrencies depend on multiple miners. This allows the processing to be spread out and decentralized. Miners validate the integrity of the transactions and as a result, the miners receive a “block reward” for their efforts. But, these rewards are cut in half every 210,000 blocks. A bitcoin block reward when it first started in 2009 was 50 BTC, today it’s 12.5. There are about 1.5 million bitcoins left to mine before the reward halves again.

This limit on total bitcoins leads to an interesting issue – as the reward decreases, miners will switch their attention from bitcoin to other cryptocurrencies. This will reduce the number of miners, therefore making the network more centralized. This centralization creates greater opportunity for cyber bad guys to “hack” the network and wreak havoc, or for the remaining miners to monopolize the mining.

At some point, and we are already seeing the early stages of this, governments and banks will demand to implement more control. They will start to produce their own cryptocurrency. Would you trust these cryptos? What if your bank offered loans in Bitcoin, Ripple or Monero? Would you accept and use this type of loan?

Because it’s a limited resource, what happens when we reach the 21 million bitcoin limit? Unless we change the protocols, this event is estimated to happen by 2140.  My first response  – I don’t think bitcoins will be at the top of my concerns list in 2140.

The Interconnected Home

So what does crypto-mining malware or mineware have to do with your home? It’s easy enough to notice if your laptop is being overused – the device slows down, the battery runs down quickly. How can you tell if your fridge or toaster are compromised? With your smart home now interconnected, what happens if the cyber bad guys operate there? All a cyber bad guy needs is electricity, internet and CPU time. Soon your fridge will charge your toaster a bitcoin for bread and butter. How do we protect our unmonitored devices from this mineware? Who is responsible for ensuring the right level of security on your home devices to prevent this?

Smart home vulnerabilities present a real and present danger. We have already seen baby monitors, robots, and home security products, to name a few, all compromised. Most by IOActive researchers. There can be many risks that these compromises introduce to the home, not just around cryptocurrency. Think about how the interconnected home operates. Any device that’s SMART now has the three key ingredients to provide the cyber bad guy with everything he needs – internet access, power and processing.

Firstly, I can introduce my mineware via a compromised mobile phone and start to exploit the processing power of your home devices to mine bitcoin. How would you detect this? When could you detect this? At the end of the month when you get an electricity bill. Instead of 50 pounds a month, its now 150 pounds. But how do you diagnose the issue? You complain to the power company. They show you the usage. It’s correct. Your home IS consuming that power.

They say that crypto mining is now using as much power as a small country. That’s got a serious impact on the power infrastructure as well as the environment. Ahhhh you say, I have a smart meter, it can give me a real time read out of my usage. Yes, it’s a computer. And, if I’m a cyber bad guy, I can make that computer tell me the latest football scores if I want. The key for a corporation when a cyber bad guy is attacking is to reduce dwell time. Detect and stop the bad guy from playing in your network. There are enterprise tools that can perform these tasks, but do you have these same tools at home? How would you Detect and React to a cyber bad guy attacking your smart home?

IOActive has proven these attack vectors over and over. We know this is possible and we know this is almost impossible to detect. Remember, a cyber bad guy makes several assessments when deciding on an attack – the risk of detection, the reward for the effort, and the penalty for capture. The risk of detection is low, like very low. The reward, well you could be mining blocks for months without stopping, that’s tens of thousands of dollars. And the penalty… what’s the penalty for someone hacking your toaster… The impact is measurable to the homeowner. This is real, and who’s to say not happening already. Ask your fridge!!

What’s the Answer –  Avoid Using Smart Home Devices Altogether?

No, we don’t believe the best defense is to avoid adopting this new technology. The smart and interconnected home can offer its users fantastic opportunities. We believe that the responsibility rests with the manufacturer to ensure that devices are designed and built in a safe and secure way. And, yes, everything is designed; few things are designed well.IOActive researchers spend 99% of their time trying to identify vulnerabilities in these devices for the safety of everyone, not just corporations. The power is in the hands of the consumer. As soon as the consumer starts to purchase products based not only on their power efficiency, but their security rating as well, then we will see a shift into a more secure home.

In the meantime, consider the entry point for most cyber bad guys. Generally, this is your desktop, laptop or mobile device. Therefore, ensure you have suitable security products running on these devices, make sure they are patched to the correct levels, be conscious of the websites you are visiting. If you control the available entry points, you will go a long way to protecting your home.
INSIGHTS | June 28, 2017

WannaCry vs. Petya: Keys to Ransomware Effectiveness

By Daniel Miessler

With WannaCry and now Petya we’re beginning to see how and why the new strain of ransomware worms are evolving and growing far more effective than previous versions.

I think there are 3 main factors: Propagation, Payload, and Payment.*

  1. Propagation: You ideally want to be able to spread using as many different types of techniques as you can.
  2. Payload: Once you’ve infected the system you want to have a payload that encrypts properly, doesn’t have any easy bypass to decryption, and clearly indicates to the victim what they should do next.
  3. Payment: You need to be able to take in money efficiently and then actually decrypt the systems of those who pay. This piece is crucial, otherwise people will quickly learn they can’t get their files back even if they do pay and be inclined to just start over.


WannaCry vs. Petya
WannaCry used SMB as its main spreading mechanism, and its payment infrastructure lacked the ability to scale. It also had a kill switch, which was famously triggered and halted further propagation.

 Petya on the other hand appears to be much more effective at spreading since it’s using both EternalBlue and credential sharing
/ PSEXEC to infect more systems. This means it can harvest working credentials and spread even if the new targets aren’t vulnerable to an exploit.

 [NOTE: This is early analysis so some details could turn out to be different as we learn more.]

 What remains to be seen is how effective the payload and payment infrastructures are on this one. It’s one thing to encrypt files, but it’s something else entirely to decrypt them.

 The other important unknown at this point is if Petya is standalone or a component of a more elaborate attack. Is what we’re seeing now intended to be a compelling distraction?
  
There’s been some reports indicating these exploits were utilized by a sophisticated threat actor against the same targets prior to WannaCry. So it’s possible that WannaCry was poorly designed on purpose. Either way, we’re advising clients to investigate if there is any evidence of a more strategic use of these tools in the weeks leading up to Petya hitting.   

 *Note: I’m sure there are many more thorough ways to analyze the efficacy of worms. These are just three that came to mind while reading about Petya and thinking about it compared to WannaCry.

INSIGHTS | May 20, 2017

Post #WannaCry Reaction #127: Do I Need a Pen Test?

In the wake of WannaCry and other recent events, everyone from the Department of Homeland Security to my grandmother is recommending penetration tests as a silver bullet to prevent falling victim to the next cyberattack. But a penetration test is not a silver bullet, nor is it universally what is needed for improving the security posture of an organization. There are several key factors to consider. So I thought it might be good to review the difference between a penetration test and a vulnerability assessment since this is a routine source of confusion in the market. In fact, I’d venture to say that while there is a lot of good that comes from a penetration test, what people actually more often need is a vulnerability assessment.

First, let’s get the vocabulary down:

Vulnerability Assessments

Vulnerability Assessments are designed to yield a prioritized list of vulnerabilities and are generally best for organizations that understand they are not where they want to be in terms of security. The customer already knows they have issues and need help identifying and prioritizing them.

With a vulnerability assessment, the more issues identified the better, so naturally, a white box approach should be embraced when possible. The most important deliverable of the assessment is a prioritized list of vulnerabilities identified (and often information on how best to remediate).

Penetration Tests

Penetration Tests are designed to achieve a specific, attacker-simulated goal and should be requested by organizations that are already at their desired security posture. A typical goal could be to access the contents of the prized customer database on the internal network or to modify a record in an HR system.

The deliverable for a penetration test is a report on how security was breached in order to reach the agreed-upon goal (and often information on how best to remediate).

Why does it matter? In short, you get what you pay for. 

No organization has an unlimited budget for security. Every security dollar spent is a trade-off. For organizations that do not have a highly developed security program in place, vulnerability assessments will provide better value in terms of knowing where you need to improve your security posture even though pen tests are generally a less expensive option. A pen test is great when you know what you are looking for or want to test whether a remediation is working and has solved a particular vulnerability.

Here is a quick chart to help determine what your organization may need.
VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT
PENETRATION TEST
Organizational Security Program Maturity Level
Low to Medium. Usually requested by organizations that already know they have issues, and need help getting started.
High. The organization believes their defenses to be strong, and wants to test that assertion.
Goal
Attain a prioritized list of vulnerabilities in the environment so that remediation can occur.
Determine whether a mature security posture can withstand an intrusion attempt from an advanced attacker with a specific goal.
Focus
Breadth over depth.
Depth overbreadth.

So what now?

Most security programs benefit from utilizing some combination of security techniques. These can include any number of tasks, including penetration tests, vulnerability assessments, bug bounties, white/grey/black testing, code review, and/or red/blue/purple team exercises.

We’ll peel back the different tools and how you might use them in a future post. Until then, take a look at your needs and make sure the steps you take in the wake of WannaCry and other security incidents are more than just reacting to the crisis of the week.

RESEARCH | March 1, 2017

Hacking Robots Before Skynet

By Cesar Cerrudo & Lucas Apa
Robots are going mainstream in both private and public sectors – on military missions, performing surgery, building skyscrapers, assisting customers at stores, as healthcare attendants, as business assistants, and interacting closely with our families in a myriad of ways. Robots are already showing up in many of these roles today, and in the coming years they will become an ever more prominent part of our home and business lives. But similar to other new technologies, recent IOActive research has found robotic technologies to be highly insecure in a variety of ways that could pose serious threats to the people and organizations they operate in and around.
 
This blog post is intended to provide a brief overview of the full paper we’ve published based on this research, in which we discovered critical cybersecurity issues in several robots from multiple vendors. The goal is to make robots more secure and prevent vulnerabilities from being used maliciously by attackers to cause serious harm to businesses, consumers, and their surroundings. The paper contains more information about the research, findings, and cites many sources used in compiling the information presented in the paper and this post.
 
Robot Adoption and Cybersecurity
Robots are already showing up in thousands of homes and businesses. As many of these “smart” machines are self-propelled, it is important that they’re secure, well protected, and not easy to hack. If not, instead of helpful resources they could quickly become dangerous tools capable of wreaking havoc and causing substantive harm to their surroundings and the humans they’re designed to serve.
 
We’re already experiencing some of the consequences of substantial cybersecurity problems with Internet of Things (IoT) devices that are impacting the Internet, companies and commerce, and individual consumers alike. Cybersecurity problems in robots could have a much greater impact. When you think of robots as computers with arms, legs, or wheels, they become kinetic IoT devices that, if hacked, can pose new serious threats we have never encountered before.
 
With this in mind, we decided to attempt to hack some of the more popular home, business, and industrial robots currently available on the market. Our goal was to assess the cybersecurity of current robots and determine potential consequences of possible cyberattacks. Our results show how insecure and susceptible current robot technology is to cyberattacks, confirming our initial suspicions.
 
Cybersecurity Problems in Today’s Robots
We used our expertise in hacking computers and embedded devices to build a foundation of practical cyberattacks against robot ecosystems. A robot ecosystem is usually composed of the physical robot, an operating system, firmware, software, mobile/remote control applications, vendor Internet services, cloud services, networks, etc. The full ecosystem presents a huge attack surface with numerous options for cyberattacks.
 
We applied risk assessment and threat modeling tools to robot ecosystems to support our research efforts, allowing us to prioritize the critical and high cybersecurity risks for the robots we tested. We focused on assessing the most accessible components of robot ecosystems, such as mobile applications, operating systems, firmware images, and software. Although we didn’t have all the physical robots, it didn’t impact our research results. We had access to the core components, which provide most of the functionality for the robots; we could say these components “bring them to life.”
 
Our research covered home, business, and industrial robots, as well as the control software used by several other robots. The specific robot vendors evaluated in the research are identified in the published research paper.
 
We found nearly 50 cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the robot ecosystem components, many of which were common problems. While this may seem like a substantial number, it’s important to note that our testing was not even a deep, extensive security audit, as that would have taken a much larger investment of time and resources. The goal for this work was to gain a high level sense of how insecure today’s robots are, which we accomplished. We will continue researching this space and go deeper in future projects.
 
An explanation of each main cybersecurity issue discovered is available in the published research paper, but the following is a high-level (non-technical) list of what we found:
·         Insecure Communications
·         Authentication Issues
·         Missing Authorization
·         Weak Cryptography
·         Privacy Issues
·         Weak Default Configuration
·         Vulnerable Open Source Robot Frameworks and Libraries
 
We observed a broad problem in the robotics community: researchers and enthusiasts use the same – or very similar – tools, software, and design practices worldwide. For example, it is common for robots born as research projects to become commercial products with no additional cybersecurity protections; the security posture of the final product remains the same as the research or prototype robot. This practice results in poor cybersecurity defenses, since research and prototype robots are often designed and built with few or no protections. This lack of cybersecurity in commercial robots was clearly evident in our research.
 
Cyberattacks on Robots

Our research uncovered both critical- and high-risk cybersecurity problems in many robot features. Some of them could be directly abused, and others introduced severe threats. Examples of some of the common robot features identified in the research as possible attack threats are as follows:

  • Microphones and Cameras
  • External Services Interaction
  • Remote Control Applications
  • Modular Extensibility
  • Network Advertisement
  • Connection Ports
A full list with descriptions for each is available in the published paper.
 
New technologies are typically prone to security problems, as vendors prioritize time-to-market over security testing. We have seen vendors struggling with a growing number of cybersecurity issues in multiple industries where products are growing more connected, including notably IoT and automotive in recent years. This is usually the result of not considering cybersecurity at the beginning of the product lifecycle; fixing vulnerabilities becomes more complex and expensive after a product is released.
 
The full paper provides an overview of the many implications of insecure robots as they become more prominent in home, business, industry, healthcare, and other applications. We’ve also included many recommendations in the paper for ways to design and build robotic technology more securely based on our findings.
 
Click here for more information on the research and to view the full paper for additional details and descriptions.   
RESEARCH | February 17, 2016

Remotely Disabling a Wireless Burglar Alarm

By Andrew Zonenberg
Countless movies feature hackers remotely turning off security systems in order to infiltrate buildings without being noticed. But how realistic are these depictions? Time to find out.
 
Today we’re releasing information on a critical security vulnerability in a wireless home security system from SimpliSafe. This system consists of two core components, a keypad and a base station. These may be combined with a wide array of sensors ranging from smoke detectors to magnet switches to motion detectors to create a complete home security system. The system is marketed as a cost-effective and DIY-friendly alternative to wired systems that require expensive professional installation and long term monitoring service contracts.
     

 

Looking at the FCC documentation for the system provides a few hints. It appears the keypad and sensors transmit data to the base station using on-off keying in the 433 MHz ISM band. The base station replies using the same modulation at 315 MHz.
 
After dismantling a few devices and looking at which radio(s) were installed on the boards, I confirmed the system is built around a star topology: sensors report to the base station, which maintains all system state data. The keypad receives notifications of events from the base station and drives the LCD and buzzer as needed; it then sends commands back to the base station. Sensors only have transmitters and therefore cannot receive messages.
 
Rather than waste time setting up an SDR or building custom hardware to mess with the radio protocol, I decided to “cheat” and use the conveniently placed test points found on all of the boards. Among other things, the test points provided easy access to the raw baseband data between the MCU and RF upconverter circuit.
 
I then worked to reverse engineer the protocol using a logic analyzer. Although I still haven’t figured out a few bits at the application layer, the link-layer framing was pretty straightforward. This revealed something very interesting: when messages were sent multiple times, the contents (except for a few bits that seem to be some kind of sequence number) were the same! This means the messages are either sent in cleartext or using some sort of cipher without nonces or salts.
 
After a bit more reversing, I was able to find a few bits that reliably distinguished a “PIN entered” packet from any other kind of packet.
 
 

 

I spent quite a while trying to figure out how to convert the captured data bytes back to the actual PIN (in this case 0x55 0x57 -> 2-2-2-2) but was not successful. Luckily for me, I didn’t need that for a replay attack.
 
To implement the actual attack I simply disconnected the MCUs from the base station and keypad, and soldered wires from the TX and RX basebands to a random microcontroller board I had sitting around the lab. A few hundred lines of C later, I had a device that would passively listen to incoming 433 MHz radio traffic until it saw a SimpliSafe “PIN entered” packet, which it recorded in RAM. It then lit up an LED to indicate that a PIN had been recorded and was ready to play back. I could then press a button at any point and play back the same packet to disarm the targeted alarm system.
 
 

 

This attack is very inexpensive to implement – it requires a one-time investment of about $250 for a commodity microcontroller board, SimpliSafe keypad, and SimpliSafe base station to build the attack device. The attacker can hide the device anywhere within about a hundred feet of the target’s keypad until the alarm is disarmed once and the code recorded. Then the attacker retrieves the device. The code can then be played back at any time to disable the alarm and enable an undetected burglary, or worse.
 
While I have not tested this, I expect that other SimpliSafe sensors (such as entry sensors) can be spoofed in the same fashion. This could allow an attacker to trigger false/nuisance alarms on demand.
 
Unfortunately, there is no easy workaround for the issue since the keypad happily sends unencrypted PINs out to anyone listening. Normally, the vendor would fix the vulnerability in a new firmware version by adding cryptography to the protocol. However, this is not an option for the affected SimpliSafe products because the microcontrollers in currently shipped hardware are one-time programmable. This means that field upgrades of existing systems are not possible; all existing keypads and base stations will need to be replaced.
 
IOActive made attempts through multiple channels to contact SimpliSafe upon finding this critical vulnerability, but received no response from the vendor. IOActive also notified CERT of the vulnerability in the normal course of responsible disclosure. The timeline can be found here within the release advisory. 
 
SimpliSafe claims to have its units installed in over 300,000 homes in North America. Consumers of this product need to know the product is inherently insecure and vulnerable to even a low-level attacker. This simple vulnerability is particularly alarming because; 1) it exists within a “security product” that is trusted to secure over a million homes; 2) it enables an attacker to completely own the system (i.e., disable it, change PIN codes, etc.), and; 3) many unsuspecting consumers prominently display window and yards signs promoting their use of this system…essentially self-identifying their home as a viable target for an attacker. 
 
RESEARCH | December 9, 2015

Maritime Security: Hacking into a Voyage Data Recorder (VDR)

By Ruben Santamarta
In 2014, IOActive disclosed a series of attacks that affect multiple SATCOM devices, some of which are commonly deployed on vessels. Although there is no doubt that maritime assets are valuable targets, we cannot limit the attack surface to those communication devices that vessels, or even large cruise ships, are usually equipped with. In response to this situation, IOActive provides services to evaluate the security posture of the systems and devices that make up the modern integrated bridges and engine rooms found on cargo vessels and cruise ships. [1]

 

There are multiple facilities, devices, and systems located on ports and vessels and in the maritime domain in general, which are crucial to maintaining safe and secure operations across multiple sectors and nations.

 

Port security refers to protecting all of these assets from acts of piracy, terrorism, and other unlawful activities, such as smuggling. Recent activity appears to demonstrate that cyberattacks against this sector may have been underestimated. As threats evolve, procedures and policies must improve to take these new attack scenarios into account. For example,https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/12/18/2014-29658/guidance-on-maritime-cybersecurity-standards

 

This blog post describes IOActive’s research related to one type of equipment usually present in vessels, Voyage Data Recorders (VDRs). In order to understand a little bit more about these devices, I’ll detail some of the internals and vulnerabilities found in one of these devices, the Furuno VR-3000.

 

What is a Voyage Data Recorder?

(http://www.imo.org/en/OurWork/Safety/Navigation/Pages/VDR.aspx ) A VDR is equivalent to an aircraft’s ‘BlackBox’. These devices record crucial data, such as radar images, position, speed, audio in the bridge, etc. This data can be used to understand the root cause of an accident.

 

Real Incidents

Several years ago, piracy acts were on the rise. Multiple cases were reported almost every day. As a result, nation-states along with fishing and shipping companies decided to protect their fleet, either by sending in the military or hiring private physical security companies.

On February 15, 2012, two Indian fishermen were shot by Italian marines onboard the Enrica merchant vessel, who supposedly opened fire thinking they were being attacked by pirates. This incident caused a serious diplomatic conflict between Italy and India, which continues to the present. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrica_Lexie_case

 

‘Mysteriously’, the data collected from the sensors and voice recordings stored in the VDR during the hours of the incident was corrupted, making it totally unusable for authorities to use during their investigation.  As this story, from Indian Times, mentions the VDR could have provided authorities with crucial clues to figure out what really happened.

 

Curiously, Furuno was the manufacturer of the VDR that was corrupted in this incident. This Kerala High Court’s document covers this fact: http://indiankanoon.org/doc/187144571/ However, we cannot say whether the model Enrica Lexie was equipped with was the VR-3000. Just as a side note, the vessel was built in 2008 and the Furuno VR-3000 was apparently released in 2007.

 

Just a few weeks later, on March 1, 2012, the Singapore-flagged cargo ship MV. Prabhu Daya was involved in a hit-and-run incident off the Kerala Coast. As a result, three fishermen were killed and one more disappeared and was eventually rescued by a fishing vessel in the area. Indian authorities initiated an investigation of the accident that led to the arrest of the MV. Prabhu Daya’s captain.

During that process, an interesting detail was reported in several Indian newspapers.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/voyage-data-recorder-of-prabhu-daya-may-have-been-tampered-with/article2982183.ece

 

So, What’s Going on Here?

From a security perspective, it seems clear VDRs pose a really interesting target. If you either want to spy on a vessel’s activities or destroy sensitive data that may put your crew in a difficult position, VDRs are the key.

 

Understanding a VDR’s internals can provide authorities, or third-parties, with valuable information when performing forensics investigations. However, the ability to precisely alter data can also enable anti-forensics attacks, as described in the real incident previously mentioned.

 

As usual, I didn’t have access to the hardware; but fortunately, I played some tricks and found both firmware and software for the target VDR. The details presented below are exclusively based on static analysis and user-mode QEMU emulation (already explained in a previous blog post). [2]
 
Figure: Typical architecture of a VR-3000

 

Basically, inside the Data Collecting Unit (DCU) is a Linux machine with multiple communication interfaces, such as USB, IEEE1394, and LAN. Also inside the DCU, is a backup HDD that partially replicates the data stored on the Data Recording Unit (DRU). The DRU is protected against aggressions in order to survive in the case of an accident. It also contains a Flash disk to store data for a 12 hour period. This unit stores all essential navigation and status data such bridge conversations, VHF communications, and radar images.

 

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) recommends that all VDR and S-VDR systems installed on or after 1 July 2006 be supplied with an accessible means for extracting the stored data from the VDR or S-VDR to a laptop computer. Manufacturers are required to provide software for extracting data, instructions for extracting data, and cables for connecting between a recording device and computer.

 

The following documents provide more detailed information:
After spending some hours reversing the different binaries, it was clear that security is not one of its main strengths of this equipment. Multiple services are prone to buffer overflows and command injection vulnerabilities. The mechanism to update firmware is flawed. Encryption is weak. Basically, almost the entire design should be considered insecure.
 

Take this function, extracted from from the Playback software, as an example of how not to perform authentication. For those who are wondering what ‘Encryptor’ is, just a word: Scytale.

 

Digging further into the binary services we can find a vulnerability that allows unauthenticated attackers with remote access to the VR-3000 to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges. This can be used to fully compromise the device. As a result, remote attackers are able to access, modify, or erase data stored on the VDR, including voice conversations, radar images, and navigation data.

VR-3000’s firmware can be updated with the help of Windows software known as ‘VDR Maintenance Viewer’ (client-side), which is proprietary Furuno software.

 

The VR-3000 firmware (server-side) contains a binary that implements part of the firmware update logic: ‘moduleserv’

 

This service listens on 10110/TCP.

 

Internally, both server (DCU) and client-side (VDR Maintenance Viewer, LivePlayer, etc.) use a proprietary session-oriented, binary protocol. Basically, each packet may contain a chain of ‘data units’, which, according to their type, will contain different kinds of data.

 

Figure: Some of the supported commands
‘moduleserv’ several control messages intended to control the firmware upgrade process. Let’s analyze how it handles a ‘SOFTWARE_BACKUP_START’ request:
An attacker-controlled string is used to build a command that will be executed without being properly sanitized. Therefore, this vulnerability allows remote unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges.
Figure: ‘Moduleserv’ v2.54 packet processing
Figure: ‘Moduleserv’ v2.54 unsanitized system call

 

At this point, attackers could modify arbitrary data stored on the DCU in order to, for example, delete certain conversations from the bridge, delete radar images, or alter speed or position readings. Malicious actors could also use the VDR to spy on a vessel’s crew as VDRs are directly connected to microphones located, at a minimum, in the bridge.

 

However, compromising the DCU is not enough to cover an attacker’s tracks, as it only contains a backup HDD, which is not designed to survive extreme conditions. The key device in this anti-forensics scenario would be the DRU. The privileged position gained by compromising the DCU would allow attackers to modify/delete data in the DRU too, as this unit is directly connected through an IEEE1394 interface. The image below shows the structure of the DRU.
Figure: Internal structure of the DRU

Before IMO’s resolution MSC.233(90) [3], VDRs did not have to comply with security standards to prevent data tampering. Taking into account that we have demonstrated these devices can be successfully attacked, any data collected from them should be carefully evaluated and verified to detect signs of potential tampering.

 

IOActive, following our responsible disclosure policy, notified the CERT/CC about this vulnerability in October 2014. The CERT/CC, working alongside the JPCERT/CC, were in contact with Furuno and were able to reproduce and verify the vulnerability. Furuno committed to providing a patch for their customers “sometime in the year of 2015.” IOActive does not have further details on whether a patch has been made available.
 
References
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RESEARCH | April 17, 2014

A Wake-up Call for SATCOM Security

By Ruben Santamarta
During the last few months we have witnessed a series of events that will probably be seen as a tipping point in the public’s opinion about the importance of, and need for, security. The revelations of Edward Snowden have served to confirm some theories and shed light on surveillance technologies that were long restricted.
 
We live in a world where an ever-increasing stream of digital data is flowing between continents. It is clear that those who control communications traffic have an upper-hand.
 
Satellite Communications (SATCOM) plays a vital role in the global telecommunications system. Sectors that commonly rely on satellite networks include:
  • Aerospace
  • Maritime
  • Military and governments
  • Emergency services
  • Industrial (oil rigs, gas, electricity)
  • Media
It is important to mention that certain international safety regulations for ships such as GMDSS or aircraft’s ACARS rely on satellite communication links. In fact, we recently read how, thanks to the SATCOM equipment on board Malaysian Airlines MH370, Inmarsat engineers were able to determine the approximate position of where the plane crashed. 
 
IOActive is committed to improving overall security. The only way to do so is to analyze the security posture of the entire supply chain, from the silicon level to the upper layers of software. 
 
Thus, in the last quarter of 2013 I decided to research into a series of devices that, although widely deployed, had not received the attention they actually deserve. The goal was to provide an initial evaluation of the security posture of the most widely deployed Inmarsat and Iridium SATCOM terminals.  
 
In previous blog posts I’ve explained the common approach when researching complex devices that are not physically accessible. In these terms, this research is not much different than the previous research: in most cases the analysis was performed by reverse engineering the firmware statically.
 
What about the results? 
 
Insecure and undocumented protocols, backdoors, hard-coded credentials…mainly design flaws that allow remote attackers to fully compromise the affected devices using multiple attack vectors.
 
Ships, aircraft, military personnel, emergency services, media services, and industrial facilities (oil rigs, gas pipelines, water treatment plants, wind turbines, substations, etc.) could all be affected by these vulnerabilities.
 
I hope this research is seen as a wake-up call for both the vendors and users of the current generation of SATCOM technology. We will be releasing full technical details in several months, at Las Vegas, so stay tuned.
The following white paper comprehensively explains all the aspects of this research IOActive_SATCOM_Security_WhitePaper
INSIGHTS | November 11, 2013

Practical and cheap cyberwar (cyber-warfare): Part I

By Cesar Cerrudo
Every day we hear about a new vulnerability or a new attack technique, but most of the time it’s difficult to imagine the real impact. The current emphasis on cyberwar (cyber-warfare if you prefer) leads to myths and nonsense being discussed. I wanted to show real life examples of large scale attacks with big impacts on critical infrastructure, people, companies, etc.
 

The idea of this post is to raise awareness. I want to show how vulnerable some industrial, oil, and gas installations currently are and how easy it is to attack them. Another goal is to pressure vendors to produce more secure devices and to speed up the patching process once vulnerabilities are reported.


The attack in this post is based on research done by my fellow pirates, Lucas Apa and Carlos Penagos. They found critical vulnerabilities in wireless industrial control devices. This research was first presented at BH USA 2013. You can find their full presentation here https://www.blackhat.com/us-13/archives.html#Apa
 
A common information leak occurs when vendors highlight how they helped Company X with their services or products. This information is very useful for supply chain attacks. If you are targeting Company X, it’s good to look at their service and product providers. It’s also useful to know what software/devices/technology they use.

 

In this case, one of the vendors that sells vulnerable wireless industrial control devices is happy to announce in a press release that Company X has acquired its wireless sensors and is using them in the Haynesville Shale fields. So, as an attacker, we now know that Company X is using vulnerable wireless sensors at the Haynesville Shale fields. Haynesville Shale fields, what’s that? Interesting, with a quick Google search you end up with:
 
 
 
How does Google know about shale well locations? It’s simple, publically-available information. You can display wells by name, organization, etc.:
 
 
 
 
 
Even interactive maps are available:
 
 
 
You can find all of Company X’s wells along with their exact location (geographical coordinates). You know almost exactly where the vulnerable wireless sensors are installed.
 
Since the wells are at a remote location, exploiting the wireless sensor vulnerabilities becomes an interesting challenge. Enter drones, UAV unmanned aerial vehicles. Commercially available drones range from a couple hundred dollars to tens of thousands dollars, depending on range, endurance, functionality, etc. You can even build your own and save some money. The idea is to put the attack payload in a drone, send it to the wells’ location, and launch the attack. This isn’t difficult to do since drones can be programmed to fly to x,y coordinates and execute the payload while flying around the target coordinates (no need to return). 
 
Depending on your budget, you can launch an attack from a nearby location or very far away. Depending on the drone’s endurance, you can be X miles away from the target. You can extend the drone’s range depending on the radio and antenna used. 
 
The types of exploits you could launch from the drone range from bricking all of the wireless devices to causing some physical harm on the shale gas installations. Manipulating device firmware or injecting fake data on radio packets could make the control systems believe things like the temperature or pressure are wrong. Just bricking the devices could result in significant lost money to Company X. The devices would need to be reconfigured/reflashed. The exploits could interfere with shale gas extraction and even halt production. The consequences of an attack could be even more catastrophic depending on how the vulnerable devices are being used.
 
Attacks could be expanded to target more than just one vendor’s device. Drones could do reconnaissance first, scan and identify devices from different vendors, and then launch attacks targeting all of the specific devices.
 
In order to highlight attack possibilities and impact consequences I extracted the following from http://www.onworld.com/news/newsoilandgas.html (the companies mentioned in this article are not necessarily vulnerable, this is just for illustrative purposes):
 
“…Pipelines & Corrosion Monitoring
Wireless flow, pressure, level, temperature and valve position monitoring are used to streamline pipeline operation and storage while increasing safety and regulatory compliance. In addition, wireless sensing solutions are targeted at the billions of dollars per year that is spent managing pipeline corrosion. While corrosion is a growing problem for the aging pipeline infrastructure it can also lead to leaks, emissions and even deadly explosions in production facilities and refineries….”
 
Leaks and deadly explosions can have sad consequences.
 
Cyber criminals, terrorists, state actors, etc. can launch big impact attacks with relatively small budgets. Their attacks could produce economical loses, physical damage, even possible explosions.
 
While isolated attacks have a small impact when put in the context of cyberwar, they can cause panic in populations, political crisis, or geopolitical problems if combined with other larger impact attacks.
Probably in a future post I will describe more of these kinds of large scale, big impact attacks.