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Now Meltdown Patches Are Making Industrial Control Systems Lurch (theregister.co.uk)

Posted by msmash on from the clock-is-ticking dept.

Patches for the Meltdown vulnerability are causing stability issues in industrial control systems. From a report: SCADA vendor Wonderware admitted that Redmond's Meltdown patch made its Historian product wobble. "Microsoft update KB4056896 (or parallel patches for other Operating System) causes instability for Wonderware Historian and the inability to access DA/OI Servers through the SMC," an advisory on Wonderware's support site explains. Rockwell Automation revealed that the same patch had caused issues with Studio 5000, FactoryTalk View SE, and RSLinx Classic (a widely used product in the manufacturing sector). "In fairness [this] may be RPC [Remote Procedure Call] change related," said cybersecurity vulnerability manager Kevin Beaumont.

1 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Industrial systems should be super-simple by Rogue974 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I am a controls engineer and use the software mentioned in this post.

    First, controls guys who know anything and don't get IT telling them, you must do this now, will never install a patch until vetted by the manufacturer. I actually got a notice from the vendor saying, don't install this patch 2 days after the patch was available.

    As to being more complex then they should be or simple...

    The actual controllers that run the process are extremely simple, extremely hardened and designed to run 24/7/365. PLC processors cost $4000-$15,000 depending on type and memory and they get into the hundred of meg of memory.

    Where it gets difficult is when you start using PCs to run your operator interface. There are tons of graphics, reports, trends, etc and you use software that is designed to run on Windows, which most of your operator interfaces are designed to do.

    When a patch like this hits, the operator interface or historian has issues, but the PLC running the process keeps doing it's job, you just can't see into the PLC.

    So yes and no. There are things that are more complex and that could be simplified/run separate from windows, but those start getting prohibitively expensive and the tiny bit of extra reliability is not needed. Those kinds of systems cost 2-5 times as much and the development of those systems is more expensive because there are even fewer people with experience with it. If I had experience with those systems, I would be making 70% more then I am now and I am making enough that I don't need to complain.