Researchers Discover Critical Security Flaws Found In Nuke Plant Radiation Monitors (securityweek.com)

wiredmikey writes from a report via Security Week: Researchers have discovered multiple unpatched vulnerabilities in radiation monitoring devices that could be leveraged by attackers to reduce personnel safety, delay detection of radiation leaks, or help international smuggling of radioactive material. Ruben Santamarta, a security consultant at Seattle-based IOActive, at the Black Hat conference on Wednesday, saying that radiation monitors supplied by Ludlum, Mirion and Digi contain multiple vulnerabilities. There are many kinds of radiation monitors used in many different environments. IOActive concentrated its research on portal monitors, used at airports and seaports; and area monitors, used at Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs). However, little effort was required for the portal monitors: "the initial analysis revealed a complete lack of security in these devices, so further testing wasn't necessary to identify significant vulnerabilities," Santamarta explained in his report (PDF). In the Ludlum Model 53 personnel portal, IOActive found a backdoor password, which could be used to bypass authentication and take control of the device, preventing the triggering of proper alarms.

Comments

Re:Not at all suprising

[Orgasmatron]

I have a drill coming up soon for my local reception center. I'll forward this to my EMS coordinator and make sure she updates the station briefing to include that the portals are never to be left unattended and that unauthorized personnel are not to mess with them. Not that anyone was going to leave them alone or let strangers tamper with them before...

In the end, the most likely "patch" will be a locking cover.

It remains unclear to me how one would hack a portal monitor to detect and respond to the check source, but not to actual contamination. The opposite would be easier, but we'd notice by the time a second clean body showed up for decontamination.

The perimeter monitors are a much bigger problem. The men-with-guns are unlikely to allow physical tampering, and the men-in-tyvek will certainly notice that the detected radioactive cloud isn't real, but "no one will ever want to hack my industrial control communication" disease needs to die a horrible flaming death sooner rather than later. Digital sensors that do anything more than update a pretty graph need to be authenticated. In cases other than this one, they may need to be encrypted too. Analog sensors need 100% physical security from the power supply to the sensor to the receiver/monitor.