Assessing and Exploiting Control Systems

This is not your traditional SCADA security course! How many courses send you home with your own PLC and a set of hardware/RF hacking tools?!? This course teaches hands-on penetration testing techniques used to test individual components of a control system, including embedded electronic field devices, network protocols, RF communications, and master servers. Skill learned apply directly to systems such as the Smart Grid, PLCs, RTUs, smart meters, building management, manufacturing, Home Area Networks (HAN), smart appliances, SCADA, substation automation, and synchrophasors. This course is structured around the formal penetration testing methodology created by UtiliSec for the United States Department of Energy. Using this methodology and SamuraiSTFU (Security Testing Framework for Utilities), an open source Linux distribution for pentesting energy sector systems and other critical infrastructure, we'll perform hands-­‐on penetration testing tasks on user interfaces (on master servers and field device maintenance interfaces), control system protocols (modbus, DNP3, IEC 60870-­‐5-­‐104), RF communications (433MHz, 869MHz, 915MHz), and embedded circuit attacks (memory dumping, bus snooping, JTAG, and firmware analysis). We’ll tie these techniques and exercises back to control system devices that can be tested using these techniques. The course exercises will be performed on a mixture of real world and simulated devices to give students the most realistic experience as possible in a portable classroom setting.

Advances in modern control systems such as the energy sector’s “Smart Grid” brings great benefits for asset owners/operators and customers alike, however these benefits come at a cost from a security perspective. With increased functionality and addition inter-­‐system communication, modern control systems bring a greater risk of compromise that both asset owners/operators and customers must accept to realize the desired benefits. To minimize this risk, penetration testing in conjunction with other security assessment types must be performed to minimize vulnerabilities before attackers can exploit critical infrastructures that exist in all countries around the world.

Objectives

• Attendees  will  be  able  to  explain  the  steps  and  methodology  used  in  performing  penetration  tests  on

Industrial  Control  and  Smart  Grid  systems.

• Attendees  will  be  able  to  use  the  free  and  open  source  tools  in  SamuraiSTFU  to  discover  and  identify

vulnerabilities  in  web  applications.

• Attendees  will  be  able  to  exploit  several  hardware,  network,  user  interface,  and  server-­‐side

vulnerabilities

Course Content

Introduction to the NESCOR methodology for penetration testing

• Preparing for a penetration test
• Architecture reviews
• Pentesting the master servers
• Pentesting the user interfaces
• Pentesting the network communications
• Pentesting the embedded field devices
• End-­‐to-­‐end assessment
• Reporting

Introduction to SamuraiSTFU (Security Testing Framework for Utilities)

• Setting up the virtual machine
• Walk through the tools and functionality
• Introduction to the student hardware kits

Performing traditional network pentests on control systems

• Overview of a traditional network penetration test methodology
• Dangers of port and vulnerability scanning
• Strategies to perform port and vulnerability scanning

Types of ICS user interfaces

• Traditional applications
• Web applications
• Terminal interfaces

Pentesting Different Communication Layers

• Testing of communication mediums vs communication protocols
• Where security defenses should be place …… and tested

Serial communications

• RS-485 and RS-232
• Modbus RTU
• 16-bit unsigned registers and single bit coils

Pentesting RF communications between master servers and field devices

• Hands-on RF spectrum analysis and signal capture
• Spread Spectrum types and strategies
• Hands-on signal demodulation with GNU Radio
• Hands-on network traffic extraction
• Traffic transmission and exploitation

Pentesting TCP/IP based ICS protocols

• Protocol capture and analysis
• modbus, DNP3, IEC 61850, ICCP, ZigBee, C37.118, and C12.22
• Dealing with unknown protocols
• Hands-on entropy analysis of network payloads
• Reverse engineering unknown protocols
• Hands-on ICS protocol fuzzing

Pentesting technician interfaces on ICS field and floor devices

• Functional analysis of field technician interfaces
• Hands-on exercise capturing USB communications to tech interfaces
• Hands-on exercise analyzing captured USB communications
• Impersonating endpoints in field tech interface communications
• Hands-on exercises fuzzing AMI Smart Meter c12.18 optical interfaces
• Exploiting vulnerabilities found during analysis

Analyzing field and floor device firmware

• Obtaining field and floor device firmware
• Hands-on exercise disassembling firmware
• Hands-on exercise analyzing disassembled firmware
• Exploiting firmware flaws

Overview of pentesting field and floor device embedded circuits

• Local attack through physically exposed devices
• Expanding physical attacks to remote attacks
• Cryptographic keys and firmware

Analysis of embedded electronics in ICS field and floor devices

• Discussion of device disassembly
• Component analysis on embedded circuits
• Datasheet acquisition and analysis for target components

Dumping data at rest on embedded circuits

• Using the Bus Pirate and other similar tools
• Overview of I2C or two-wire serial protocol
• Hands-on exercise dumping I2C EEPROMs
• Overview of SPI serial protocol
• Hands-on exercise dumping SPI EEPROMs
• Overview of JTAG
• Hands-on exercise interfacing with JTAG

Bus Snooping on embedded circuits

• Overview of bus snooping
• Hands-on exercise snooping busses

Analyzing data obtained from data dumping and bus snooping

• Hands-on exercise doing string analysis of datasets
• Hands-on exercise doing entropy analysis of datasets
• Hands-on exercise doing systematic key searches through datasets
• Hands-on exercise doing file carving from datasets

Requirements

Basic penetration testing experience is desirable, but not required. It is assumed that attendees will have no knowledge of ICS, Smart Grid, SCADA, or critical infrastructure. This course is designed for intermediate level security professionals, be they engineers, technicians, analysts, managers, or penetration testers.

Recommended read

For those with little or no ICS experience, these Wikipedia articles provide a brief introduction to the concepts and history of control systems that will be helpful to know for class.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICS
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCADA
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_control_system
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_grid

http://nostarch.com/xboxfree - While this has nothing to do with control systems, it provides a great introduction to the concepts and techniques taught in this class to pentest embedded electronic hardware in ICS field/floor devices.

http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistir/ir7628/nistir-­‐7628_vol3.pdf -­‐ Chapter 7 of the NIST interagency Report 7628, titled Bottom-­‐up Security Analysis of the Smart Grid, provides a great overview of the challenges faced in Smart Grid and energy sector systems, many of which we are testing for and exploiting in this class.

Software and hardware requirements

• Laptop with at least two USB ports (three ports preferred). If only two USB ports exist on the Laptop and they are right next to each other (such as found on a Macbook Air), a USB extension cable must be brought as well
• Latest VMware Player, VMware Workstation, VWware Fusion installed. Other virtualization software such as Parallels or VirtualBox may work if the attendee is familiar with its functionality, however VMware Player should be prepared as a backup just in case
• Access to an account with administrative permissions and the ability to disable all security software on their laptop such as Antivirus and/or firewalls if needed for the class
• A DVD drive to copy the course files
• At least thirty (30) GB of free hard drive space
• At least four (4) GB of RAM, optimally eight (8) GB of RAM

Provided at the course

• Latest version of SamuraiSTFU (Security Testing Framework for Utilities)
• PDF version of the course slide deck
• Student hardware/RF pentest kits to use in class and take home

Trainer Biography

Don C. Weber is a Senior Security Analyst with InGuardians. He has devoted himself to the field of information security since 2002. His most recent experiences include providing penetration assessment, architecture review, detailed hardware security assessment, wireless and radio implementation analysis, and incident response management for a wide range of industries including those in the financial, retail, and energy markets. Don's Smart Grid experience includes end-to-end AMI assessments for several energy-related clients and he has provided guidance on several Smart Grid-related standards committees and during Smart Grid conferences.

Don's previous experiences include large-scale incident response efforts for organizations with international assets and interests, the certification and accreditation of classified federal and military systems, assessment and penetration testing of worldwide commercial assets, and, as a Navy contractor, the management of a team of distributed security professionals responsible for the security of mission critical Navy assets. Don has achieved his master's degree in network security, the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification, and many GIAC certifications. Don was a founding member of the GIAC Ethics Council of which he was the GIAC EC Chair in 2009. Don regularly contributes to a wide variety of open source projects involving information security and incident response.

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Don's Blog

Mon. 5 - 7 October 2015 (09:00 - 17:00)

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