SCADA Hacking Revisited

A hacker with the handle of 'pr0f' is unhappy with Homeland Security's handling of the Illinois water utility hack. So in a pastebin post, 'pr0f' wrote, "This was stupid. You know. Insanely stupid. I dislike, immensely, how the DHS tend to downplay how absolutely F****D the state of national infrastructure is. I've also seen various people doubt the possibility an attack like this could be done. So, y'know. The city of South Houston has a really insecure system. Wanna see? I know ya do." Then he posted links to images showing access to SCADA and South Houston's water supply

www.networkworld.com...

So we have confirmation that this kind of system is actively being compromised now, and still people sit on their hands and ignore the warnings that have been coming out of the InfoSec world for ages now. Fortunately for now the attacks are proofs of concept, but unless utility companies extract their heads from the sand and work to lock down these systems someone with an anti-social streak is going to turn off the power or water to large cities.

pastebin: http:///Wx90LLum

reply to post by Helig


It's absolute madness. I was angry when I first heard that this type of thing is possible.

I wonder if our nuclear reactors are hooked up the same way too.

From the Little I understand of this, Scada systems are everywhere, and most of them are dangerously insecure.

It's a major issue that needs to be worked on before someone does something horrific.

I wonder if our nuclear reactors are hooked up the same way too.

reply to post by Truth4Thought

sure - thats how isreal will fight iran...nearly everything is hackable...

Scada systems are what i do for a living!. I can tell you that they are very very Insecure. Most are built by people who have very little understanding of security. Most are built on Windows architecture, linked to brand name PLC
units. If you can compromise a network, you will most certainly be able in many cases to compromise a SCADA system..

2 cents

... but to connect SCADA systems to the internet, that is sheer madness.... I would have imagined that SCADA manufacturers would have designed a firewall that is basically unbreakable by now, only allowed heavily encrypted data to one port, if they needed internet connectivity, at all. When I worked with SCADA systems, they all had leased line-connections, or private lines running to the control stations, but that was like 30 years ago....