Researchers Discover Critical Security Flaws Found In Nuke Plant Radiation Monitors (securityweek.com) 43
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.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
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Yeah, but the mangled characters make it look like Welsh. It's a lot funnier when you read it in a Welsh accent.
No one cares about your bullshit post (Score:1)
You're a nutcase.
A rubber-padded room is where you belong.
Backdoors Never Accidental (Score:3)
Automated radiation detection equipment that basically measures how big fines companies will pay when managing nuclear materials, back doors and no security, now that shit never happens by accident. Only question needed to be asked, how much money can be saved by not alerting the authorities of mismanagement, of letting them know investigations and prosecutions should occur and of opening up a cheating company taking stupid short cuts to civil suits. This device and the company need a proper investigation as does every single place that has that device fitted for undisclosed radiation leaks. This should be a major red flag.
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Not at all suprising (Score:5, Informative)
I work alongside a team that maintains and repairs these things, and they certainly aren't made for high levels of digital security. If you know the right place to stick a flash drive in a portal monitor sure you could do damage to it, I can attest it isn't fancy. But it doesn't have to be.
For one, a portal monitor is a last line of defense against radioactive contamination being tracked around. We aren't talking about huge levels of radiation, the contamination is managed by good safety practices (work plans, electronic dosimeters, maps of potential loose contamination, etc.). But there is a responsibility to ensure that a worker doesn't accidentally drag anything home with them to the general public, no matter how insignificant. Which is really what the monitors are for.
For two, there are usually multiples of these things in a row, inside a heavily fortified concrete area surrounded by unfriendly looking men with machine guns (at least at any nuclear facility, a school or small lab that has one would be different). Combine those two things, and an attempt to "hack" monitors would be about the most moronic waste of resources any government would ever spend. You couldn't do any real damage, you couldn't hurt anyone... at best you could get a radiation protection manager fired for allowing a small uncontrolled release of radioactivity, or a miscalculated dose rate to a worker.
I'm all for security, but there needs to be a little perspective. Standalone portal monitors that are airgaped don't need to be a digital fort knox. The level of effort is extreme to screw with them, and the payback would be insignificant. The truth is most specialized lab/nuclear equipment isn't extremely secure unless it serves an actual security function (a CDA, critical digital asset, which are almost always network isolated and have more robust security). Quite the opposite, most of it is very simple and made to be maintained almost indefinitely by moderately skilled technicians. Cost, usability, and maintainability is more important.
Re:Not at all suprising (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Not at all suprising (Score:4, Informative)
Vaguely similar position, I've looked at the code running in some of these things. It's written by nuclear physicists who by the looks of the code are often self-taught programmers. It's not just a lack of security in there, it's a lack of any kind of sound programming practice. The physics part (meaning the algorithms and analysis portion) is just fine, but the code itself is ghastly, it's a wonder it works at all in some cases. If you move any part of it outside the parameters under which it was written, anything can happen, endless loops, processing invalid data, reading/writing arbitrary memory locations, you name it.
It's known that these things have approximately zero security. They were accessed via VPN boxes that went back to a central, secure, location, and physical security around them was very, very heavy. If you know what you're dealing with, you can institute appropriate security measures to address it.
I thought I was going to have a long read ahead of (Score:3)
Re: I thought I was going to have a long read ahea (Score:3)
Those thing are not supposed to be secure (Score:1)
Re:Those thing are not supposed to be secure (Score:4, Interesting)
In other Nuclear News (Score:1)
Some information about the status of Fukushima NPP:
A billion tons of triated water to be dumped into the pacific ocean [japantimes.co.jp]
Unit 3 core elements found in the bottom of the pressure vessel [japantimes.co.jp]
More pictures of melted fuel [nydailynews.com]
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A nuclear plant... ocean-adjacent... on a tightly-pact island. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?!
"Scientists suggest Fukushima was actually the best location of the listed alternatives, the alternative being located under a 10,000 baby day-care center for cancer survivors."
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So, you are saying the decommissioning process is going well?
I'm not sure what you think I'm supposed to take away from this. The is a discussion of nuclear power plant security and the Fukushima site seems pretty secure right now. They have no sign of uncontrolled release of radiation, and the exploratory robots are working well. I didn't look at all the photos in detail, is there a North Korean spy that was caught in one of the frames or something?
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I'm not sure what you think I'm supposed to take away from this. The is a discussion of nuclear power plant security and the Fukushima site seems pretty secure right now. They have no sign of uncontrolled release of radiation,
What? That is the exact opposite of what is happening. There is seawater exchange in and out of the location where they found the melted fuel. Remember when they were denying that there was even a meltdown? Evey time Tepco communicates, they lie. It's the most reliable force in the universe.
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Evey time Tepco communicates, they lie. It's the most reliable force in the universe.
So Kellyanne Conway is working for Tepco now?
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No, I'm saying you attempt to falsify reality in pursuit of your idealogy.
I'm saying TEPCO are clearly not capable, willfully and criminally negligent. I'm saying the sooner this is resolved with an international effort the lower the overall impact will be.
Air gapped (Score:2)
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What I'd be more concerned about is that when I was working with the International Atomic Energy Authority (UN) about 4 years ago the entire outfit was still being run off an old IBM Series 360 Mainframe.
I don't know about the International Atomic Energy Authority, but the International Atomic Energy Agency isn't run off an IBM Series 360 Mainframe, or any kind of mainframe at all. Where was this "Authority" of yours located? A disused factory in Moldova?
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And where in the VIC is this magical IBM 360 located?
(This should be good).
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Radiation "Safe" levels. (Score:1)