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Offshore Drilling Rigs Vulnerable To Hackers
Hugh Pickens writes "Foreign Policy magazine reports that a research team from the SINTEF Group, an independent Norwegian think tank, has warned oil companies worldwide that offshore oil rigs are highly vulnerable to hacking as they shift to unmanned robot platforms where vital operations — everything from data transmission to drilling to sophisticated navigation systems that maintain the platform's position over the wellhead — are controlled via wireless links to onshore facilities. 'The worst-case scenario, of course, is that a hacker will break in and take over control of the whole platform,' says Martin Gilje Jaatun, adding that it hasn't happened yet, but computer viruses have caused personnel injuries and production losses on North Sea platforms. The list of potential cyberattackers includes ecowarriors aiming to jack up an oil firms' production costs, extortionists drawn to oil firms' deep pockets, and foreign governments engaging in a strategic contest for ever-more-scarce global oil reserves, says Jeff Vail, a former counterterrorism and intelligence analyst with the US Interior Department. 'It's underappreciated how vulnerable some of these systems are,' says Vail. 'It is possible, if you really understood them, to cause catastrophic damage by causing safety systems to fail.'"
Now, "I got a shell account" gets a whole new meaning.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
computer viruses have caused personnel injuries and production losses on North Sea platforms
They run Windows-based control software, and don't take the most basic security precautions such as banning web browsing and operators from executing unsigned files on management consoles?
... (along with most other computer/OS manufacturers) that the OS is *NOT* to be used in situations where failure of the system may lead to injuries or loss of life. The fact that a consumer OS is being used at all, never mind one so suscpetable to malware, in a scenario wheres peoples lives may hang in the balance is frankly staggering.
So, you hack in, and then it turns out that the Patriots have released nanomachines to control the flow of phonemes as part of the S5 program to eliminate the meal of breakfast in collaboration with the reverse vampires.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
We're talking about something a bit more critical than online text messaging for the facebook generation.
Before "Therac-25" becomes a verb in general use?
"What happened to Bob?"
"He was Therac-25ed by the drillbot when the control system went down."
I smell the makings of a new Michael Bay movie! A group of terrorists from (insert nation/region here) systematically take over all the robotic oil rigs and hold the world's oil supply hostage. And only one man can take them on to save the world!
This guy's the limit!
I hope nobody finds the old Davinci Virus which was written about 25 years ago...
When modding "Informative", please make sure it both has a source and IS actually informative.
Either the reporter doesn't get it, or it's FUD. Wikipedia lists two open source versions: OpenSCADA and FreeSCADA, but mentions that the original versions (presumably "decades-old") were on Unix or VMS and proprietary; hardly open source. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCADA)
The "Astounding" post above says "They run Windows-based control software". That *is* astounding, and should be considered criminally negligent.
So I'm guessing this is why we don't see that show on the air anymore.
mmmm...forbidden donut
SINTEF is not a think tank, it is a major applied-research institution. It is similar (with due proportions) to the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Thus the reason why he is "free lance"...
In all honesty though, this (along with a billion other things) needs to be considered by competent computer admins and not jackasses sitting in the leather chairs.
1331461 is only semiprime *sigh* Alas - I am just short of 1337.
The SINTEF-report can be found here:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/8v34n016j3648872/
and the base report for a successful attack is here:
http://sislab.no/redteam.pdf
Well, maybe not an engineering license but something with a professional license.
Communications that involve equipment that can kill or do a lot of harm to the planet should be reviewed and stamped by someone who can certify that the systems are safe to use and resistant to attacks by likely attackers and that any failure will be graceful, at least from a "people don't die, oceans to get heavily polluted, and the nation's oil supply isn't choked off for too long" standpoint. Of course, as the definition of "likely attacker" changes these will need to be re-certified.
By the way, not all solutions are technical. If the problem is someone forging credentials claiming to be the boss, calling the boss up on the phone and asking him how his camping trip last weekend went then asking him to confirm the instructions might be the best way to detect a fake. Of course, that's not totally immune from a man-in-the-middle attack but it helps.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
And this big question is: How many oil rig platforms use WEP? I bet that all of them do
Linux forever
Disclaimer: My first job after graduation was with SINTEF, next I worked 24 years for Hydro/StatoilHydro (Norway's largest offshore oil operator), where I (among many other things) specified how the production and admin networks should be separated on each platform.
First of all: Most North Sea platforms use fiber links these days, microwave is only there as a backup in case something cuts the fiber, which means that if you want to use the radio link as your attack point, you must first locate and disable the fiber(s).
Second, the production networks, which is the only part which can directly affect platform infrastructure has significantly better security than the office/admin net.
I.e. you would first have to hack into the regular StatoilHydro network, then find a way to pass through the admin/process firewall before you could even start to try to take over one or more control computers. (And afaik none of these run any form of open source SCADA sw.)
Finally, the 'integrated operations' mentioned in the article consists of special on-shore operations rooms which have strict physical security checks: The computers inside these rooms are indeed part of the production network, they have no direct links at all to the office/admin net and/or the Internet.
Terje
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"
What was left out of the article is the obvious, virtually all of these platforms run some variation of MS windows .... tick, tick, tick .....
Most rely on the decades-old supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) software, written in an era when the "open source" tag was more important than security, said Jeff Vail, a former counterterrorism and intelligence analyst with the U.S. Interior Department.
If a guy that gives the wrong finger can hack the world's oil supply we're all in trouble.
What's a Sig?
Problem I see with totally automated rigs is, there are some situations that will arise that require humans to work around. Teleoperated rigs just won't be able to handle it without some "hands on" work. I've got some friends in the drilling game (water & core sampling here in the Southwest), and they tell me that every hole drilled is different, each presents its own set of problems. Until they build true machine intelligence, people are gonna need to be in the loop.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
These days everybody runs on Windows XP. No problem there; XP machines can be made secure. The real problem is this quote from the report: "We have performed penetration testing on OPC, which is a central component in process control systems on oil installations.". OPC protocol is based on DCOM. And most people want to do DCOM via a network to remote platforms. That is where the problems start. DCOM is horrible. There are solutions: Matrikon makes a good tunneler program for example, other SCADA and DCS vendors also do tunneling of OPC via safer methods than DCOM over a wide area network.
Conclusion: the report has some good points, the summary in the above link is FUD.
Disclaimer: I work with DCS's (also on remote oil platforms) for a living...
Some things needs to be done only by human workers on site.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
...pay a few real live human beings to stay on those rigs to provide some degree of security. In the end I trust people way more than tech or code no matter how advanced it is. Automation is fine and more efficient but if things go balls up it's nice to have a guy on site that can pull the plug or push a button and shut it all down before millions of gallons of crude go pouring into the ocean.
"If you want to know what happens to you when you die, go look at some dead stuff."
I seriously doubt there are many (if any) hackers out there competent enough to hack into and disable an oil platform who would actually do this. Every few months, we hear about how our power grid is vulnerable to hackers or our water supply or all sorts of other things, but hackers have yet to actually attack any of those things. Sure, it's possible one day. Anything is possible. It's just not very likely based on past history.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
... does it say they used Windows? At a recent conference on software safety and security, I heard a presentation on this topic that indicated that a lot of these incidents are like the one quoted in the article - a disgruntled employee or ex-employee with knowledge of how the system works, hacks into the wireless control network, and causes damage by incorrectly operating valves or altering sensor readings, causing an inappropriate reaction by the system. The example quoted was a water treatment facility that was part of a resort complex in Australia. Like this example, one of the contractors that installed the wirelessly operated system was disgruntled over not getting a permanent job. So he showed up outside the facility with a wireless equipped laptop, gained access to the system, and caused raw sewage to be discharged into the environment. He did this repeatedly before being caught. But this had nothing whatsoever to do with Windows.
Given that the article provides no examples, I take the line about "computer viruses causing injuries and production losses" with a huge grain of salt. I'd bet the mortgage payment that what really happened is that computer viruses in non-essential, but Windows based systems caused economic damages by deleting or altering financially significant data.
... but the actual article doesn't. I think we're assuming too much here.
There are a couple of "iffy" items in the article. First, how can an oil leak detector cause oil leaks (let alone spills)? That like saying having a faulty gas gauge on my car is going to either keep the tank completely empty or completely full all the time. Secondly, a claim is made that "computer viruses have caused personnel injuries". This seems unlikely; without specific examples, it seems more likely to be a case of alarmist authorship or convenient excuse for another root cause.
You assume that the choices are:
A) Microsoft OS (which specifically states that it is NOT FOR USE WHERE PEOPLE MAY DIE)
B) Some fucking idiot with 3 days of C programming classes making a custom operating system.
Alright, I guess I have to explain this to you.
It is possible to hire experienced, knowledgeable people to develop custom operating systems. It is also possible to have that code thoroughly reviewed, tested, etc. to make sure it won't fail in such a way that people die.
Yes, it's more expensive to create/maintain/fix. But on the other hand, people won't die this way.
Seriously, do you use carabiners that say "not for climbing" when you go climbing because they're "cheaper" and "easier to replace"? If not, then you probably should so that you may rid us of your misguided thought that devices that say "NOT FOR USE WHERE PEOPLE MAY DIE" are perfectly suited to things where people may die.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Unmanned oil platforms take care of the hooker vulnerability.
"And your alternative is...? A specially built OS from Joe's basement?"
Yes. What OSes do you think run aircraft avionics, train safety control systems and so on? Fucking Windows with a VB app on top?? Get a bloody clue!
"Most of the medical systems I work with (where lives hang in the balance) are plain ol' WinXP"
That says a lot about the indifference and stupidity of most medical organisations that it does about the suitability of using a consumer OS in safety critical systems.
"Seems like a reasonable tradeof"
Yeah , whatever.