[HN Gopher] U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cybera...
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U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack
Author : opaque
Score : 217 points
Date : 2021-05-08 12:07 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| Xunxi wrote:
| It's only a matter of time, there's gonna be physical casualties
| at some point in time. We've all seen it in the movies. Experts
| have warned of the dangers of tethering vital utilities controls
| to the internet.
|
| Is it not possible to develop protocol or device that operates
| outside of the web but functions like the'two-man' rule used to
| launch nuclear bombs?
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| > the'two-man' rule used to launch nuclear bombs?
|
| Yes. It's called Threshold Cryptography and it generalizes
| 'two-man' rule to require that _N_ of _M_ authorized users
| agree to an action.
|
| But it's not really necessary here. What's needed for
| infrastructure is to get it off the internet and to quit using
| insecure operating systems and languages.
| shagie wrote:
| One such example... a test done at the Idaho National Lab
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/how-30-lines-of-code-blew-up-27-...
|
| That lab tends to specialize in cybersecurity and
| infrastructure.
|
| https://www.wired.com/2011/10/idaho-national-laboratory/
|
| The critical infrastructure part of the lab:
|
| https://inl.gov/critical-infrastructure-protection/
| extropy wrote:
| It's like 100x more expensive.
|
| Would be nice to have separate data lines, running fiber optics
| sealed in pressurized conduits for double tamper detection. The
| military actually does this for their critical infra.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Would be nice to have separate data lines, running fiber
| optics sealed in pressurized conduits for double tamper
| detection.
|
| At least German Telekom has been doing this for ages for the
| trunk cables serving entire areas with analog phone service -
| although not for tamper detection as an anti-spionage
| measure, but rather to detect and pinpoint damage to the
| cables, e.g. from excavators, tree growth or splice seals
| degrading.
| oasisbob wrote:
| Pressurizing conduits also helps prevent water ingress.
| lazide wrote:
| Those devices don't work like a nuclear bomb control does -
| that is adding resistance/controls to taking an action.
|
| The appropriate analogy is more like a nuclear reactor. They
| require some system controls to stay functional and healthy
| (water temp increases in loop x, increase motor speed of pump
| y, if already at or exceeding speed z, set off an alarm).
|
| These controls need constant monitoring in a control station
| somewhere, sometimes tuning or fixing if there is a bug or
| issue somewhere, etc.
|
| A lot of the cost of a nuclear plant is trying to cover every
| possible scenario and being compliant with endless regulations
| for stuff like this (and everything else).
|
| That most non-nuclear plants don't want to deal with the hassle
| and expense shouldn't surprise anyone. That non-nuclear plants
| often don't even TRY to cover basic cases SHOULD dismay and
| surprise people. These issues have been well known and
| publicized for literally 30 years.
|
| A reason safety guys in these industries have the saying
| 'regulations are written in blood' is often not because no one
| sees the danger. Rather, until the body count reaches a certain
| point, no one can justify the expense to require it be fixed.
| Jerry2 wrote:
| > _It 's only a matter of time_
|
| According to some sources, it's been done before:
|
| > _CIA plot led to huge blast in Siberian gas pipeline_
|
| > _Thomas Reed, a former US Air Force secretary who was in
| Ronald Reagan 's National Security Council, discloses what he
| called just one example of the CIA's "cold-eyed economic
| warfare" against Moscow in a memoir to be published next
| month._
|
| > _Leaked extracts in yesterday 's Washington Post describe how
| the operation caused "the most monumental non-nuclear explosion
| and fire ever seen from space" in the summer of 1982._
|
| > _Mr Reed writes that the software "was programmed to reset
| pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond
| those acceptable to pipeline joints and welds"._
|
| https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/...
| t3rabytes wrote:
| A few years back we had two different instances of this pipeline
| getting shut down from newly-found leaks. While they say it won't
| cause gas shortages, these articles tend to drive people to the
| pumps in droves in the southeastern states served by it (like
| mine, NC!).
| [deleted]
| Honey_Mustard wrote:
| "Eastern European-based criminal gang -- DarkSide," They never
| say Western European criminal gang, they always brainwash people
| to think eastern europeans are criminals.
| koheripbal wrote:
| Washington Post reported it was a ransomware attack.
|
| It may not have been a targeted attack.
| nabilhat wrote:
| The WaPo article itself is much more detailed. The bits about
| the age and fragility of Colonial's pipelines are far more
| significant than ransomware. Colonial's continued neglect is
| more disruptive than any single attack on the pipeline. The
| persistence of unreliable infrastructure is a more valuable
| disruptive asset to an organized opponent than a single
| targeted attack.
|
| Tangent - Also interesting, the WaPo article [0] bears little
| resemblance to itself from only hours ago [1]. The article has
| grown by about 50%, while contents have come and gone. That's
| my favorite application for archive dot is - Seeing the
| timelapse of iterative releases, watching journalism bend and
| sway in the current of its own response. I'm not making any
| judgements, the internet is already sloshing with useless hot
| takes about journalism and media. It's just fascinating to see
| the modern editorial process at work, out in the open.
|
| [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/05/08/cyber-
| att...
|
| [1] https://archive.is/vlNs2
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Relates to the Kent Beck "Latency vs Througput" post[1] on
| here right now... do you post the story immediately, and
| start getting feedback, or do you wait and do research and
| get it (more) right before posting it?
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27088272
| tedk-42 wrote:
| 20 odd posts and yours is the only sensible one.
|
| It's certainly a security incident but until we know more it's
| hard to say the infrastructure was specifically targetted for
| an 'attack'
| ruined wrote:
| nice
| mikewarot wrote:
| Connecting infrastructure to the internet is something that is
| done for many reasons. It would be a vast improvement of security
| if most of those connections went through a data diode[1] and
| only allowed monitoring.
|
| Knowing what is happening now with critical infrastructure,
| through the internet, can be done in a completely safe manner. It
| is a solved problem.
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unidirectional_network
| jeffbee wrote:
| What would be the difference between having a data diode
| between your control and monitoring network and external
| monitoring systems, versus just splitting the monitoring part
| off into a completely separate network with ordinary two-way
| traffic?
| stunt wrote:
| What you explained doesn't solve the problem. You still want
| to have an unidirectional network in place at least between
| your critical infrastructure to the monitoring systems.
|
| Monitoring systems are usually separate and often have their
| dedicated network too, but they still need some sort of
| network connection to your critical infrastructure to do
| their job (monitoring).
| mikewarot wrote:
| If you put a data diode between your infrastructure and the
| internet, you can see the status from anywhere, yet never
| compromise it from the outside.
| [deleted]
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| Given Government inaction on climate change, could we begin to
| see motivated individuals or groups taking matters into their own
| hands and targeting fossil fuel infrastructure in this manner?
| aardvarkr wrote:
| That would be domestic terrorism and is an easy way to turn the
| entire population against the cause
| adrianmonk wrote:
| It could do more harm than good, but it remains possible that
| someone will do it anyway. It's a legitimate scenario for
| these types of companies to consider in their cyber-security
| planning and preparation (assuming they have any).
| pm90 wrote:
| Domestic attacks would be somewhat more difficult to carry
| out without being detected. It's much easier for the
| Government to track domestic actors since there's so much
| data collected on them both Nationally and by local law
| enforcement.
|
| That's why international attacks are more prevalent and
| bold: they're not as easily traceable. However, that also
| comes with its downsides: if the USG wants, it might just
| use lethal force against you.
|
| So ultimately the people who tend to do this repeatedly end
| up being state owned or state protected actors, who are
| likely offered some sort of protection by their State from
| retribution by the USG.
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| With a bus load of activists you could probably shut down a
| coal mine or coal power plant. Just repeat the interruptions
| until the location is closed.
|
| Environmentalists used to chain themselves to trees. Would
| the same physical actions work for climate change?
|
| Its difficult to see the public being opposed to this when
| coal infrastructure is on the edge of irrelevancy anyway and
| easily replaced.
| post_break wrote:
| Yikes, get ready for a huge jump in oil pricing.
| jumelles wrote:
| > Colonial's pipeline transports 2.5 million barrels each day,
| taking refined gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel from the Gulf
| Coast up to New York Harbor and New York's major airports. Most
| of that goes into major storage tanks, and with energy use
| depressed by the pandemic, the attack was unlikely to cause any
| immediate disruptions.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/08/us/cyberattack-colonial-p...
| leppr wrote:
| Oh, what a surprise, another unexpected event pumping oil
| prices.
| beckingz wrote:
| There's no need to use crude jokes here. It's a gasoline
| pipeline, so more refined jokes are appropriate.
| ruined wrote:
| musk lithium coup
| Armisael16 wrote:
| Why would oil prices jump? This isn't an oil pipeline.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Because they can and do use any excuse to bump the prices.
| post_break wrote:
| Because there was already a glut, now the places that feed
| this pipeline have to be backed up. Just because it's
| gasoline doesn't mean it's not a link in the whole chain.
| stunt wrote:
| Because unlike their network gateways, their pricing change
| is unidirectional.
| [deleted]
| v8dev123 wrote:
| All these attacks usually caused by two things, office macros and
| mimikatz.
| Pfhreak wrote:
| I'm surprised we don't see more attacks on pipelines - both
| digital and physical. There are many folks out there who take
| issue with them or see them as a vulnerable part of our
| infrastructure.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| So, two possible responses by the government to the current
| increase in these kinds of attacks:
|
| 1) blame the lack of computer security in our infrastructure, and
| work on improving that
|
| 2) blame cybercurrencies, and try to eliminate them
|
| Any bets on which one our government will choose?
| coffeefirst wrote:
| Both are correct.
|
| The state of computer security is unacceptable and needs to be
| fixed. Today its profit-motivated extortionists, but anything
| they can do is also an option for spy agencies, and is it
| really that hard to imagine anti-oil activists pulling the same
| stunt some day?
|
| On the other hand, crypto is the thing behind the profit
| motive. If crypto is impractical (if there were no way to
| convert it to real currency), the profit incentives for these
| attacks (and mining, for that matter) break down.
|
| I realize this isn't a popular opinion around here, but we
| should probably do both.
| randomhodler84 wrote:
| Yes, we need to ban math. Math is the root of cryptography;
| which is the root of cryptocurrency. Ultimately it's numbers.
| They are the worst. Everything bad comes from the interaction
| of points on elliptic curves.
|
| Get out of here with this.
| echelon wrote:
| Cryptocurrency, not math and cryptography.
|
| Cryptocurrency is a bunch of people thinking their bets are
| more important than the government's control levers of
| monetary and fiscal policy. They'd rather make a quick buck
| and disregard the fact that this takes away our
| government's sovereignty. Our government's ability to bail
| out the economy, protect its most vulnerable.
|
| It's more important that the Winklevosses and early
| supporters get all the economic upside, and it's just fine
| if the US dollar slides into the abyss. Lower income folks
| surely won't get screwed by this.
|
| Nevermind the fact that cryptocurrency is destroying the
| environment. That's just a minor detail.
|
| Cryptocurrency is selfishness and hubris.
|
| All the smart people working on this insanity would be
| doing the planet much better if they were working on fixing
| social media or making tools for cancer researchers. I'm
| not for telling people what to do with their lives, but
| this observation seems pretty obvious to me.
| LMYahooTFY wrote:
| > Our government's ability to bail out the economy,
| protect its most vulnerable.
|
| How did the bailouts in 2008 help the vulnerable people
| who were subjected to predatory loans and lost their
| homes?
|
| > Nevermind the fact that cryptocurrency is destroying
| the environment. That's just a minor detail.
|
| Can you back this up with any data? Just went through a
| paper published on this topic by a couple of
| environmental researchers and the methodology was quite
| awful, and the authors did not understand mining.
|
| I'm happy to discuss any data you have.
|
| I'm a bit pessimistic because you don't sound open to the
| idea that cryptocurrencies have any value at all.
| randomhodler84 wrote:
| It isn't, and you might be a little misinformed. But it's
| ok, you can scream into the abyss as long as you like.
|
| We don't want to cure cancer (don't know how). We want to
| free the world of the tyranny of central banking, debt-
| based economies and theft of savings through inflation.
| It is a noble endeavor. Selfishness is continuing along
| the old broken road. There are new, better ones.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| How do cryptocurrencies save you from a debt based
| economy or inflation? Don't you still need to pay for
| goods and services in the same debt-based economy? How
| does the flavor of money change whether someone needs to
| go into debt? What would prevent cryptocurrency values
| from inflating or deflating?
| gspr wrote:
| It's best not to ask. I'm starting to believe that these
| people are exhibiting cult-like behavior at this point.
| randomhodler84 wrote:
| I think the answer to those questions has been answered
| more eloquently elsewhere. They are good questions, and
| have complex and nuanced answers. I wish you luck in your
| quest.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Well, you have been convinced of these things so it
| seemed like you might have stumbled across convincing
| resources. I'm sure there's a bunch of garbage to filter
| through on this topic on the open internet.
| adventured wrote:
| A large cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is entirely capable
| of functioning like gold as a hedge against fiat
| inflation.
|
| I'm not much of a crypto cultist (which is the latest
| trend here on HN, to tag anybody that defends crypto with
| that to shut down conversation), however it's
| extraordinarily obvious at this point how
| cryptocurrencies can help you evade inflation in eg USD
| or evade the debt damage to the US economy. Bitcoin for
| its part is global and not primarily dependent on the
| condition of the US economy, and it's likely to become
| increasingly global and even less dependent on the US
| over time.
|
| > Don't you still need to pay for goods and services in
| the same debt-based economy
|
| Of course. This is a case where crypto is even better
| than gold. It's particularly trivial to convert in and
| out of traditional fiat.
|
| Surely you understand enough about cryptocurrencies at
| this point to know how easy that is. And it appears
| likely to keep getting easier, given the effort companies
| like Coinbase, Robinhood and Square are putting into it
| (check out what Square did in its latest quarter courtesy
| crypto).
|
| > How does the flavor of money change whether someone
| needs to go into debt?
|
| The parent said debt based economies. The US has an
| economy and government system that is increasingly
| drowning in debt (check out the corporate balance sheets
| in the US; nationally it's horrific; that situation has
| been spurred on by the Fed's forever low interest rates,
| which encourages corporations to take on ever greater
| sums of debt because it's artificially cheap, which will
| ultimately lead to zombies ala Japan). The Federal answer
| to that is to print ever increasing sums of fiat USD,
| because there are no foreign buyers left that can absorb
| tens of trillions in new US government debt. The Fed
| unavoidably becomes the primary buyer of the US
| Government's debt (this is where a nation begins eating
| itself; that began for the US over a decade ago now as a
| trickle, that trickle is picking up pace). Once upon a
| time not so long ago it was a huge deal that China held a
| trillion dollars of US government debt, now that sum is a
| joke, a mere portion of one spending program this week or
| next. That's how quickly the US is imploding fiscally.
|
| How does Bitcoin help you with that if you're stuck in a
| debt based economy? Well it's very obvious. The Fed will
| keep printing aggressively to fund the US Government's
| finances. And the Fed will have to hold interest rates as
| low as possible forever now, because the US Government
| can't afford its debt any longer at normal interest rates
| (3% * $40 trillion = bye bye social security or medicare
| or the US military). That need by the US to inflate
| massively, to constantly debase the rapidly expanding
| monster pile of debt, can be hedged via gold, sometimes
| via high quality stocks, and possibly via crypto (pick
| the one/s you think will endure).
|
| And as this all gets worse, the tax hikes have to keep
| getting worse, which will choke off growth, which
| accelerates the stagnation and makes everything that much
| worse. All in all, the average rate of growth in the US
| economy will keep sinking toward zero.
|
| Given enough time, somewhere between 10 and 20 years
| depending on how wild the clowns in DC get with spending,
| they'll have to begin directly debasing the USD to
| accomplish their goals (they'll promptly educate the
| public on how it's economically beneficial to devalue
| their currency), it won't be enough to do it slowly.
| There's nothing novel about any of this, we already know
| exactly what the playbook looks like, see: Japan. The US
| will be able to maneuver a little better than Japan has
| courtesy of having the global reserve currency (although
| at the rate they're destroying things, that global
| reserve position will drop out even faster than it was
| otherwise going to).
|
| The only way Bitcoin & Co aren't useful given where the
| US is obviously going at this point, is if the powers
| that be get so desperate about the context that they
| outlaw crypto or otherwise make it very impractical
| (artificially add enormous cost to owning it, via tax or
| regulation).
| DangitBobby wrote:
| You've used the word obvious several times, but strong
| political opinions and conjecture underlies every aspect
| of this response. Debt-based economy does not obviously
| refer to the fact that the dollar is printed by the fed.
| Your response also doesn't really address how it saves us
| from the debt based economy that we all have no choice
| but to participate in. There is no debate about whether
| sovereign currencies will continue to be maintained by
| governments. They will, and they will use their military
| might to protect the sovereignty. Your position here is
| akin to saying that if I park all my money in gold, I am
| no longer a victim of the debt based economy.
|
| I don't know if the gradual, typically controlled and
| predictable inflation of fiat currencies is worse than
| constant value fluctuations due to speculators in
| cryptocurrencies, but that's obviously for each
| individual to determine for themselves.
|
| I am also curious, is it impossible for new BTC (for
| example) to be minted? Is it possible to change that? My
| understanding is yes. If so, it sounds like someone could
| play the same role as the fed there if they really wanted
| to.
|
| And what happens to the value in the event of a fork of
| BTC that attempts to make BTC actually useful as a
| currency instead of just as a commodity? Is this an
| additional vector of instability in the value of the
| "currency"?
| mariojv wrote:
| I think this take is a little alarmist.
|
| Yes, the national debt is increasing, but from 2000 to
| 2020, the percent of federal debt owned by the Fed
| increased from ~11% to ~18%. [0] That is hardly
| uncontrolled money printing. Private investors are still
| buying the bulk of treasuries despite the low interest
| rates, because they're extremely safe investments. I do
| believe that inflation will pick up a bit, especially for
| assets vs. consumables, but I don't buy the idea that
| we'll see anything much worse than what was going on in
| the 70s or 80s.
|
| As far as the size of the debt, we're close to where we
| were in terms of debt to GDP ratio after World War II,
| but the cost to the country in terms of GDP of
| maintaining the debt has held fairly stable throughout
| modern history. [1] Considering the historically
| unprecedented impact of COVID-19 and the cost of dealing
| with the crisis, a temporary bump in debt is totally
| unsurprising to me, especially with how cheap it is to
| borrow.
|
| I don't have a strong opinion on whether crypto will hold
| value well over decades or not, but I find arguments that
| crypto's rise is inevitable because the collapse of the
| USD is inevitable to be particularly unfounded.
|
| [0] https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2018/04/whos-buying-
| treasuri... - expand and compare Q4 2000 to Q4 2020. [1]
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYOIGDA188S
| yyyk wrote:
| Inflation is mostly a monetary phenomenon. They'd limit
| creation of new money so it very rarely happens, and then
| we get deflation.
|
| Of course they'd end up printing money via some L2/L3 and
| we get the same deal. If we actually followed through,
| we'd get permanent deflation which is an obvious disaster
| even without accepting the Keynesian arguments against it
| (I find that part of Keynesian thinking to be mostly
| false).
| foobiekr wrote:
| (2) isn't wrong though. Ransom ware dates to 1989 but the
| uptick goes hand in hand with the rise of crypto currencies for
| the obvious reason that you don't steal what you can't fence
| and cryptocurrency has changed the risk and feasibility
| dramatically.
|
| I'm not saying I support government action here but we should
| be honest about the situation.
| aardvarkr wrote:
| That a pretty low effort dig at the government. What the hell
| does that have to do with something that is obviously state
| sponsored cyber espionage? Go troll somewhere else
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| 'obviously'? Meh.
|
| One argument you can make is to partly defund the
| surveillance-based departments and agencies and put together
| a cybersecurity agency who is tasked with hardening the
| country's systems. I have no idea how someone would build a
| legislative and personnel firewall to protect it from the
| existing need to peep through keyholes, it's probably not
| possible.
| [deleted]
| wolverine876 wrote:
| That's quite a strawperson - it creates a fictional story and
| then criticize the characters.
|
| The U.S. government has been addressing computer security in
| infrastructure for a long time.
| mcguire wrote:
| ...which is why these sorts of attacks almost never occur and
| are always so resource intensive that no criminal would ever
| think of doing so for ransom?
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Is your argument that if there's a problem, the government
| must not have tried to prevent it? We still have cancer;
| does the NIH exist? We still have crime, food poisoning,
| car accidents ...
| joejerryronnie wrote:
| I'd prefer a new Cybersecurity branch of the military with
| full funding and resources rather than Space Force.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Should the military be handling domestic cybersecurity?
| That seems especially perilous to civil liberties,
| something out of dystopian sci-fi.
|
| The military's role isn't to provide peace and justice for
| citizens, it's to kill people and destroy things. That's
| not an insult to the military, that's what soldiers will
| tell you; we need to be realistic about it. They should not
| be operating around civilians in peacetime (except in
| special circumstances).
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Not securing cyber and our infrastructure will kill and
| destroy things.
|
| What would be an example of a civil liberty violated by
| for instance standing up a large Brigade or service of
| tech soldiers who secure, patch, work to shore up our
| critical infra and services? + a lot of funding; we
| already prop up the lockheads of the country.
|
| I agree that it seems our Gov. can't be trusted not to
| intrude into our communications and other civil
| liberties.
|
| But this is more about industrial control, supply chains,
| the foundation of software etc.
|
| The gov didn't react or try to stop speech attacks on
| digital platforms even though they knew it was happening.
| They didn't even report it was happening because of I
| think naive political concerns.
|
| Personally I liken it to missile defense and other
| existing programs which we spend a HUGE amount of money
| on.
|
| Not securing our infrastructure could have even bigger
| consequences.
|
| We're already in a growing cold war, personally I think
| decent potential to go hot within a decade.
|
| Even looking at the little publicly reported easy hacks
| the, let alone the unknown advanced capabilities of state
| actors, the first salvo attacks will probably wipe out a
| huge portion of both sides infrastructure and basic
| digital necessities to function in our society. At least
| we're getting more serious about defending space because
| the military has their owned assets up there.
|
| Maybe MAD would focus these attacks on military targets
| but I don't trust these nation states, or perhaps our
| own, to limit the radius. And maybe it's not even
| possible with how inter connected things are.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| I've always secretly hoped warfare would move to the
| digital realm soley.
|
| We have some shades of that happening already, but I
| imagine a future where instead of sending young people to
| die,warring nations wreck each others economies remotely...
| which again isn't too far from current day.
|
| While there'd still be casualties it wouldn't be nearly as
| barbaric as current wars, more developed nations would
| finally have as much skin in the game as disadvantaged
| ones, etc.
|
| The way I see it, the best way to discourage war is to make
| it unprofitable. If war just becomes directly hurting each
| other's ability to make money I could see war, or erm
| excuse me _armed conflicts_ , getting a lot more
| unattractive.
| joejerryronnie wrote:
| I think you're going to see this more and more (at least
| with wealthy nations). And I think the motivation for war
| has always been primarily about profit.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| It's been motivated by profit, but this harms the
| motivation
|
| Right now it is profitable for us to go to war. Contracts
| are signed, jobs are created, it is good for powerful
| wealthy people for the country to be at war. And if
| you're powerful enough the risk of retaliation is so low
| that it's all gain and no cost (outside of human cost
| which is never enough apparently)
|
| With this type of war the equation would be switched.
| Going to war directly harms wealthy benefactors, who as a
| result of their wealth hold political influence.
|
| We're already seeing that aren't we? Espionage at
| companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin. It's not
| harming any "normal person" but it's directly hurting the
| pocketbooks of powerful people. It creates incentive to
| avoid conflict in a way that (unfortunately) young men
| and women dying doesn't seem to have done in the past
| dillondoyle wrote:
| I'm not sure it wouldn't be as barbaric at least if that
| word means human suffering and death. But I agree it's
| the future of war.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Human suffering and death are not binary things.
|
| War will always be a bad thing, but putting people on the
| ground in a foreign land with the mission to kill others
| has always amplified the horrors of war many many times
| over.
|
| Taking out power in half the US for a day would kill
| thousands, but it's the equivalent of an all out attack
| on the US.
|
| Compare that to if another country were to physically
| commit to an all out attack and it's easy to see why this
| would make future wars look like minor skirmishes
| compared to what's happened in the past
| raverbashing wrote:
| 3) investigate and neutralize the groups behind the
| cyberattacks
| waihtis wrote:
| Didn't see anything about ransomware in the article?
| bourgwaletariat wrote:
| I wonder if this has anything to do with the Colonial gas
| pipeline leak? It's been a problem for over 8 months now. Was in
| the news recently again. Over a million gallons spilled, but they
| don't really know how much.
|
| https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/eight-months-later-colonia...
| protomyth wrote:
| Perhaps we should pass a law that no utilities / infrastructure
| should be attached to the internet. Private networks are fine for
| this purpose.
| euroderf wrote:
| In 1983 the US military hived off MILNET, their portion of teh
| interwebz. Perhaps it's time for infra to do likewise. Too
| simple?
| procarch2019 wrote:
| I think the issue there is data, even on critical infra.
| Modernization, reliability and the such require data analysis.
| There are definitely 'strong' ways of protecting the assets and
| mitigating attack vectors, but almost no way to eliminate them
| entirely. For example, event if you isolate the process
| computers you'll typically have an interface node that presents
| the data up a level (hopefully to a DMZ). Obviously you can be
| compromised if that interface node is.
|
| Some critical infra is air gapped though. Other systems
| implement SIS systems in parallel with general process systems
| to mitigate catastrophic failure further.
| rossjudson wrote:
| I'm gonna watch Battlestar Galactica again for ideas.
| protomyth wrote:
| They can gather the data on the infrastructure network and
| then carry across an air gap on a USB or tape to do their
| analysis. I don't see the upside of allowing any connectivity
| to the internet given the danger other than some mechanism
| for sending an alert. I'm sure creative people can air gap
| that too (camera on the internet side and some image
| recognition for example).
| procarch2019 wrote:
| That's massively inconvenient, although I'm sure necessary
| in some cases. Some businesses actually perform analysis in
| 'real time' so they can adjust the process accordingly,
| witch requires that data be accessible. This may actually
| be such a case as I'm sure they have to interface with
| customers (tank farms) to react to supply/demand on the
| branches. For all I know Colonial does have a private
| network for that purpose though. Usually PAT is really for
| chemical processes where you are looking for a particular
| yield and those analytical services are located closer to
| the process (in terms of networks).
|
| There are devices called data diodes that provide
| unidirectional network topology, but not all time series
| data interfaces can work with them.
|
| All in all, I agree that total air gap is obviously the
| best way to mitigate network attack vectors, but sometimes
| not practical. No controlling device should be at level 3
| or 4 though (business or enterprise level).
| kaliali wrote:
| In case it hasn't crossed your mind yet
|
| Its the chinese
| ackbar03 wrote:
| What, blaming Russia doesn't bring the same satisfaction
| anymore?
| guilhas wrote:
| Yes this attack ip was traced to a Chinese wet market
|
| The attacker nickname? The bat
|
| Working together with Xl and Kim Jong-un in a Wuhan cyber
| facility
| dang wrote:
| Url changed from
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-08/u-s-s-big...,
| which points to this.
| motohagiography wrote:
| Let's see if 15+ years of security people getting after critical
| infrastructure asset owners like this has made any difference. At
| least they detected something and shut it down to control the
| response. They also know the costs to repair and replace things.
| I don't suspect the pipeline uses a federation of heterogeneous
| systems to operate its SCADA actuators, so I would speculate it
| is likely a single firmware vulnerability facilitating it.
|
| The global chip shortage for replacement parts if they are needed
| seems like a strategic coincidence. Definitely an evolving story.
| procarch2019 wrote:
| I work in control systems OT space. A lot of distributed
| control systems and scada systems interface with the business
| layer in some fashion to provide access to time series and
| event data and to allow for alerts via email/mobile. Some
| people do this properly with good network segmentation,
| firewalls, A/V and patching, etc (there are several standards
| that dictate best practice). That said, even when doing it
| properly you're introducing attack vectors. I don't think it
| would be a firmware vulnerability, but instead something
| malicious affecting the computers they use to control the
| process.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> but instead something malicious affecting the computers
| they use to control the process.
|
| I bet there is a layer of windows XP machines involved in a
| legacy control system. XP machines that weren't supposed to
| connect to the internet somehow have malware on them. It
| doesn't even have to do anything. Simply the detection of
| anything in such circumstances is enough to warrant them
| being shut down.
| procarch2019 wrote:
| Totally agree, see it all the time. I even know of a few NT
| systems floating around out there. At least most companies
| are getting their IT involved to mitigate (usually they
| work with the vendor because they know nothing about
| control systems). They usually provide funding to the
| automation groups. People are starting to take it
| seriously.
| tw04 wrote:
| Why wouldn't you use a unidirectional connection for time
| series and event data? I understand why you might want to
| send things out to the rest of the world, I can't fathom why
| you wouldn't require physical access to have write access.
| exikyut wrote:
| Genuine question (that I've been seriously wondering about
| for a long time): how do you implement validated
| attestation that a piece of log data has reached
| nonvolatile storage, triggered appropriate alarms, and that
| those alarm events have been acknowledged, while using a
| data diode type setup?
| 8note wrote:
| What do you do when this attestation fails? Eg. A fox
| chewed through the cable and the ack can't be received.
| jtchang wrote:
| Depends on your setup but a message bus architecture with
| polling would work.
| procarch2019 wrote:
| Some time series data interfaces only work with tcp comms,
| which means you can't always rely on unidirectional
| networks. I agree you should use them where possible
| though.
|
| I replied to a comment on a dupe post regarding PAT, in
| which analysis is done on process data and fed back into
| the process to increase efficiency or yield. Obviously
| there are varying levels of criticality where the risk vs
| the business reward might not be worth it though.
| motohagiography wrote:
| The reason I'm going for firmware is while the HMIs could
| have had a solarwinds style exposure, but that's just any
| generically wormable OS vulnerability, and not something that
| should cause a physical shutdown.
|
| To shutdown a pipeline, it's not a management console issue,
| hence why I'd speculate it's in the ICS devices themselves,
| which probably use uClinux toolchains on SoCs from one or two
| large vendors. I did some smart meter and ICS security work
| in the 00's, and there were a few vendors who would be
| strategic targets. The attack tools available now are
| unbelievably better, while the attack surface is pretty much
| the same due to the long lifecycles of ICS components, and
| considering today we've got cheap SDRs and gnuradio blocks
| for most wireless protocols, AVR tools, buspirate and the
| good/greatfet, ghidra/ida, and python for reverse
| engineering, the vulnerability research on this stuff moves
| way faster than the industry ability to respond.
|
| If this is a serious attack, the only way to respond will be
| if they are very lucky, it's a worm and they can stand up a
| honeynet with spare gear to catch a sample and any good
| infosec firm can pull it apart. But if it's an active APT
| group, there's probably a political solution, as given what's
| possible, this would seem to be just a shot over the bow.
| rhodozelia wrote:
| If the management console has a button or controls that
| would allow the person sitting at the management console to
| shut down the pipeline, which systems usually do have an
| emergency stop button in case there is an accident, then
| all you need is access to the management console to write
| one bit to the controller that says "operator pressed
| estop"
|
| No need for firmware vulnerabilities in VxWorks when there
| are internet connected windows pcs.
| procarch2019 wrote:
| I get what you're saying and that could very well be the
| case, but I think the 'pipeline' as a whole requires a lot
| of handshaking between the different stations. They would
| not be able to do this without their supervisory control
| later (or at least it would be particularly difficult).
| That alone could have caused them to shut it down.
|
| Additionally, if there was a whiff of malicious software or
| unintended access I would imagine they would want to make
| sure it didn't get into other systems. That would involve
| isolating and possibly shutting down machines and
| equipment.
|
| I guess we'll see when they release more information. I
| would imagine that we'll get more details since this is
| critical infrastructure.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| This.
|
| I've said it a thousand times, all the security in the world
| will not defend a SCADA system if someone left TeamViewer
| running somewhere.
|
| Don't mean to pick on TeamViewer. It could be any number of
| packages, but I think security minded people get an idea of
| the type of attack vectors I'm talking about.
| procarch2019 wrote:
| It is mind boggling the lack of basic security principles
| some people have. I won't just put that on the plants and
| their IT/OT, or lack thereof. I've seen plenty of vendors
| and integrators do some cringe worthy stuff too.
| rhodozelia wrote:
| The whole automation industry is a security disaster but
| it is because security isn't part of the deliverables for
| any party. It isn't in the specs, civil, mechanical,
| electrical engineers it isn't their responsibility.
|
| If the owner has an IT department they usually don't want
| to be responsible for it either since locking things down
| leads to weird issues with legacy proprietary SCADA
| systems.
|
| There is no out of the box secure solution available yet.
| Rockwell certainly makes an attempt with their factory
| talk directory but I highly doubt that isn't easily
| worked around somehow.
| procarch2019 wrote:
| Yea, that is correct. I typically put together the
| solutions for new systems, including security. I give the
| sales team part numbers and hours for security software
| and related hardware. They then add that as an option to
| quotes. No principal automation engineer wants to take
| that on and no IT want to be involved. Also, when money
| is tight that's an easy target for them to pass on.
|
| Luckily I've pushed enough over the years that we at
| least include A/V software as mandatory.
|
| I've been able to carve out a nice space within my
| company bridging the IT/OT divide. It's been particularly
| good recently since the bigger companies are dictating
| good cyber practices, but rely on integrators and vendors
| to implement.
|
| I don't think there will ever be an out of the box
| solution unless a system stands on its own, which is
| becoming increasingly harder with modernization and
| reliability efforts. Add on top of that privileged
| access, remote monitoring and support, automated (kind
| of) patching, etc. you have to interface with the IT side
| a bit.
| rhodozelia wrote:
| Sadly the OT networks are 100% trusting of any device on
| the network. With Schneider plcs any device on the OT
| network can write to any addressed memory register over
| modbus - it's like direct memory access DMA.
|
| I hope that one day every device on the OT network has a
| yubikey and all messages are signed so that no
| unauthenticated access is possible.
| User23 wrote:
| Shutting down pipelines is insanely expensive. Under normal
| circumstances maintenance work, including welding, is done on
| live pipelines. The guys that do that job are extremely well
| compensated, last I knew hundreds an hour, and maybe a little
| crazy.
|
| A shutdown is a huge deal and means they're taking this
| extremely seriously.
| jtchang wrote:
| In a twisted sort of way I am happy to see these types of
| ransomware attacks making headlines. Before it was much harder to
| quantify how much a breach might cost but with ransomeware you
| get a fuzzy lower bound. Also the prevalence of these attacks
| might actually make us all safer in the long run.
| bourgwaletariat wrote:
| I think I understand your POV and can see why one might find
| some peace in it, but I don't. More crime, or I suppose mroe
| news about it, so we know how much crime costs? More attacks
| make us safer? It's a means justify the ends argument, but it
| doesn't hold water.
|
| It's eerily similar to "burn it all down"
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism, which, itself is
| on the rise and burning from both ends.
|
| I infer your point to be that more attacks might cause the
| victims to step up their defenses. It's a cat and mouse game.
| Always has been in all realms.
|
| "It'll get worse before it gets better." I've been hearing that
| for decades. I'm starting to wonder, due to what appears to be
| a decline in civility. Following the rules only works if we all
| do. Those who eschew the rules have an obvious advantage.
|
| Where has integrity gone? We are tearing ourselves apart and
| justifying it ... or coming to terms with it I suppose, by
| saying it'll be better some day.
|
| Well... _when_... exactly? By what measure will we know?
|
| I know Stephen Pinker, Hans Rosling, and various folks say it's
| the best time to be a human. Okay. Sure. I see the math. I'd
| like to see them update their charts for data out over the past
| year.
|
| But ... anecdotally, none of that math seems to percolate down
| to my community. The people around me are in constant fear. I
| just saw a woman walking down the road, all by herself, I had
| clear vision for a mile and so no one else but her... and she
| was wearing a mask.
|
| She was _afraid_. She was anxious. Regardless of the relative
| safety that exists today, or the belief that it 'll be safer
| tomorrow because of the lack of said safety, the people around
| me aren't feeling it.
|
| They're buying guns because red people are coming for them...
| or the blue people already are. Or the government will. There
| is literally no milk at the store because of an HDPE shortage
| prompting the grocer to put a Force Majeur notice on the dairy
| fridge door.
|
| Trust has broken down. Fear of our own neighbors is up. Crime
| is up. Poverty is up. Suicide is up. Cyber crime is up.
| Inflation is up. The Gini coefficient is up.
|
| I really have trouble believing that making it worse real fast,
| or even reporting more of it, is going to make it better.
|
| I don't see it.
| sky_rw wrote:
| While you're probably right on the zeitgeist aspect of this,
| I think you're missing the practical aspects of what OP is
| talking about. We have major vulnerabilities to key
| infrastructure components. Publicly exposing these helps
| harden them. Yes 9-11 added a ton of security theater and
| fear, but it also resulted in armored doors on airplane
| cockpits. I'd like to see the armored door of the energy
| infrastructure implemented.
| bourgwaletariat wrote:
| That's not the society I want. I don't want stronger doors
| everywhere. Tougher locks everywhere. Onerous security
| everywhere.
|
| I prefer a society where passengers are free to chit chat
| with the pilots when they aren't busy. Where children who
| might be interested in being a pilot can see a cockpit in
| the air and how it's done.
|
| I remember reading about the history of security in ancient
| Rome. The lengths to which normal citizens had to go to to
| protect their homes. I don't want that. No one wants that.
| No one wanted that then either.
|
| It's a distraction from productivity. It's a constant worry
| factor that consumes brain waves that could be spent making
| all our lives better.
|
| Instead, we have to divert our attention to those who want
| to make it worse.
| mindslight wrote:
| While I wholeheartedly agree with what you're saying for
| the physical world, the digital world is completely
| different. In the physical world, the scope of any action
| is inherently localized. But with digital systems it
| takes just _one_ person out of seven billion (or even
| just the right software bug) to create a global scale
| problem. The Internet is best treated as a source of
| malicious noise.
| enkid wrote:
| Absolutely, it's better to have a ransomware attack against the
| workstations instead of a more developed attack that blew the
| pipeline up.
| dehrmann wrote:
| This one in particular is good because, it's public, it's not
| _that_ scary, but it 's easy to make the jump to scary attacks.
| [deleted]
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.md/kEziH
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