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Re: [Full-Disclosure] Viral infection via Serial Cable

James Tucker wrote:

Sure, but you can only move up a stack which exists.

Given that there should be no applications on the other end of the
RS232 apart from the CAD/CAM control program (one would hope, this
would be considered 'normal'), the only hackable device should be that
program. It's not unlikely that the program in question could be set
to perform destructive actions; allot of industrial software of this
type is not well written and buffers certainly don't always get
checked. This would require a custom hack though, I don't know of any
viri which carry protocol definitions for RS232 CAD/CAM programs.



I think that we're missing something here. The workstation sends commands to the laser via the serial connection (assumed RS232 for this example and not TCP/IP based) so presumably, the win2k workstation can send whatever commands it wants to the laser via the serial cable within the bounds of its programming.

Therefore, you don't need to send a virus along the serial cable, you just need to gain remote access to the CAD/CAM workstation and cause it to do something nasty.

This would require prior knowledge of it's operation and configuration, of course, and the will to carry out this crack -- but one of the cited scenarios was a "disgruntled employee" and we can presume that they have special knowledge of the environment.

In other words: keep that box off the LAN. That's my suggestion. We *know* that win2k is vulnerable to worm and virus outbreaks, and that's all we need to know for this scenario. It's like tunneling from a system with an external IP into a NAT'ed LAN -- same exact concept, only probably easier because you already have an authenticated connection to your destination.


"There aught to be limits to freedom!" George Bush


Not to defend the guy, he makes allot of stupid comments and
decisions, however he is talking about laws and he is not wrong, there
are many people in the world who need certain freedoms removed. How
about they learn to remove the freedom of gun ownership.



I agree with you, but when the quote is put into context, that's not what Bush meant. It was an angry response of his to an American who owned a website criticizing him.

Bush's point was that there ought to be limits to free speech and that people shouldn't be allowed to criticize him (and, to be fair, he could have meant others as well).

You give the man too much credit.


-Barry




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