Siemens

Siemens SCALANCE 200

Siemens Patches Holes In Industrial Control Switch

A security researcher discovered two, serious security holes in a switch by Siemens that could allow an attacker to hijack industrial control system hardware that is heavily used by energy and transportation firms, among others. IOActive, a security consulting firm in Seattle, Washington, said on Thursday that Eireann Leverett, a senior security consultant, discovered two vulnerabilities in Siemens’ SCALANCE X-200 Switches. The vulnerabilities were in a web server component that provided administrators with access to features needed to configure the switches. If exploited, they would have allowed an attacker who had access to the same network as the SCALANCE switch to perform administrative actions on the devices, including updating the switch firmware and hijack active web sessions – all without needing to first log in to the device. SCALANCE is a family of Ethernet switches that connect to industrial control system (ICS) devices including programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and Human […]

Continue Reading

FDA Will Regulate Some Apps As Medical Devices

In an important move, the U.S. Food And Drug Administration (FDA) has released final guidance to mobile application developers that are creating medical applications to run on devices like the iPhone and Android mobile devices. Some applications, it said, will be treated with the same scrutiny as traditional medical devices.* The statement is the final word from the FDA on the approach it will take when enforcing federal regulations regarding the safety of medical devices to the large and fast-growing category of medical applications. The agency said on Monday that, while it doesn’t see the need to vet “the majority of mobile apps,” because they pose “minimal risk to consumers,” it will exercise oversight of mobile medical applications that are accessories to regulated medical devices, or that transform a mobile device into a regulated medical device. In those cases, the FDA said that mobile applications will be assessed “using the same […]

Continue Reading

Report: Crematoriums To Caterpillars Shodan Reveals Internet Of Things

What kind of stuff is lurking out there on the vast (and growing) Internet of Things? A recent story in Forbes makes the point that its a lot more varied than you might think – everything from Caterpillar trucks to public school classrooms to a crematorium. And “yes,” I said “crematorium.” The idea that surveillance cameras can be accessed from the public Internet isn’t really new. Security researchers have been showing off ways to sidestep security features for IP enabled surveillance cameras for years. We wrote last week about the Federal Trade Commission’s case against a California company, TRENDNet, which made a line of balky, in secure home surveillance gear. But Kashmir Hill makes the point in her story that surveillance cameras are just the tip of the iceberg. Hill interviewed security researchers and professional Shodan jockeys, who use that hardware focused search engine to uncover supposedly secure equipment and industrial control […]

Continue Reading

For Industrial, Medical Systems: Bugs Run In The Family

On the surface, the kinds of industrial control systems that run a power plant or factory floor are very different from, say, a drug infusion pump sitting bedside in a hospital intensive care unit. But two security researchers say that many of these systems have two important things in common: they’re manufactured by the same company, and contain many of the same critical software security problems. In a presentation at gathering of industrial control security experts in Florida, researchers Billy Rios and Terry McCorkle said an informal audit of medical devices from major manufacturers, including Philips showed that medical devices have many of the same kinds of software security holes found in industrial control system (ICS) software from the same firms. The research suggests that lax coding practices may be institutionalized within the firms, amplifying their effects. Rios (@xssniper), a security researcher at Google, and McCorkle (@0psys), the CTO of SpearPoint […]

Continue Reading
1 2 3