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What do you do if a hacker takes control of your ship? (2023)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- wwweston 3y agoI'd heard the solution involves getting Jonny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie to help you hack the Gibson, but it's been a while and maybe that's out of date.
- pavel_lishin 3y ago[flagged]
- throwanem 3y agoVirus was an awful movie, not redeemed by the honorable efforts of those among its actors who understood there was nothing about it that needed taking seriously.
- pavel_lishin 3y agoMaybe I'm just looking at it through nostalgia-tinted glasses.
- throwanem 3y agoIf so, I can empathize. I viewed it much more fondly in recalling having seen it in its theatrical run, than I do now after rewatching it last year. It was still worth the rewatch, even if I doubt I'll ever feel the need to do so again.
- erulabs 3y agoDuke: “Well then, put the ships' ballasts under manual control!” THE PLAGUE: “There's no such thing anymore, Duke.”
- crotchfire 3y agoMister The Plague.
- MarkLowenstein 3y ago2023: fascinating We really live in a new world today It's crucial that we look ahead to the threats of tomorrow 2024: cyber attack on a ship? Conspiracy theory Grow up Live in the real world
- javajosh 3y agoGood article, because it's a canary in the coal-mine that warns us against drive-by-wire in personal automobiles. Personally I will never own or use a car that is drive-by-wire, especially if it's connected to the internet. I believe strongly there will be (soon?) be an incident where an org or individual will hack a fleet of such cars, cause widespread death, and the public will pull their hair and say "how could this have happened?!"
- devb 3y agoWhat is your basis for strongly believing that?
- dogman144 3y agoBecause there’s been a number of solid proof of concepts to hack car -> kill transmission mid-driving, and that was several years ago.
- exe34 3y agoWell the authorities will probably do something sensible like ban keyboards or something. They already banned the flipper zero in Canada because it can be used to unlock insecure cars.
- __MatrixMan__ 3y agoTo what end? If the hack happens, I think it's much more likely that we see a string of assassinations that look like accidents, or kidnappings that don't look like vehicle-related skulduggery at all. It's just not as valuable if you pull the trigger all at once.
- Terr_ 3y ago> It's just not as valuable if you pull the trigger all at once. Not if they short-sell the car-manufacturer stock first! Granted, that might increase their odds of being caught, but attackers don't have to be wise to be dangerous. Depending on what can be hacked, another possibility would be a string of suspiciously-smooth thefts.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- RobotToaster 3y agoI'm beginning to think Commander Adama had the right idea about networks on ships.
- lp0_on_fire 3y agoI’m beginning to think that idea needs to be applied to a lot more than just ships. I’ll write more about it once I figure out why my smart refrigerator is showing me porn instead of the weather.
- BitwiseFool 3y agoThe refrigerator is a distraction, the toaster is the real threat.
- CoastalCoder 3y agoOkay, I'll bite. What's the reference?
- supercoffee 3y agoToaster was a pejorative term used to refer to the Cylons, the race of robots at war with humanity in Battlestar Galactica.
- spitfire 3y agoTalkie the toaster, a true menace. Red Dwarf predicted the horrors of AI three decades ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRq_SAuQDec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRq_SAuQDec
- RecycledEle 3y agoThat reminds me of the nag until I accidentally fat-finger the "OK" button EULAs, especially on "smart" TVs.
- shiroiushi 3y ago
- i_am_proteus 3y agoHave a non-networked backup GPS. Have a non-networked backup navigation radar. Have a way to manually control engines and rudder (wrench on an actuator, sound-powered phone circuit[a] from bridge to the machinery room). Practice using all of the above. [a] These are required on basically all ships as a safety measure. Crew know how to use them.
- lupusreal 3y agoFor the sake of an example, if we assume the Baltimore bridge ship was hacked to crash, I think it's doubtful crew could have gotten to and manually actuated the rudder (assuming that was possible) fast enough to prevent the collision.
- i_am_proteus 3y agoIf they were standing by to do so, then yes, they would be able to take action in a timely fashion. (It is a standard practice on some ships to have such personnel standing by during high-risk situations.)
- pixl97 3y agoThe question is how much time does it take to realize what the emergency actually is? I'm sure the protocol for "X is broke and doing Y" is probably much different than "X is not broke but is actually being controlled by someone else who may also have control with other systems"
- voxic11 3y agoYeah if they control the systems you use to navigate and assess the status of the ship you might not notice it isn't under your control for quite a while.
- jcgrillo 3y agoThey got the engine restarted, though, right? If there's a manual override for the rudder hydraulics it stands to reason that would also be located in the engine room, or at least very nearby. So I suspect this incident actually proves they could have responded to a fly-by-wire anomaly, but can't know without reading the report.
- uwagar 3y agoso could it be that the baltimore accident was a cyber attack? or is the timing of this post a coincidence?
- Sakos 3y agoNo, but it is worth considering what might be possible for a malicious actor in the near future, considering how disastrous this single collision is (which could have been significantly worse in lives lost had it been in the middle of the day).
- jandrese 3y agoAs it turns out had this happened in the middle of the day we might have been able to avoid all of the casualties. The harbor pilot managed to call shore early enough to have the bridge closed before the ship hit, so the only casualties were an extremely unlucky pothole crew who didn't get the warning in time.
- capitainenemo 3y agoUnless it was rush hour and there was nowhere for backed up cars to go.
- toast0 3y agoThe bridge closure was so fast because there were already police on the bridge for traffic control around the repair crew. Had it happened during the day, police may not have made it to the entrances in time. Or, if during rush hour, there may not have been time for the bridge to clear even if the entrances were closed.
- nickwarren 3y agoI have some friends that work in a variety of positions on older boats in the maritime industry, and are quite skeptical about upgrades to drive by wire systems. They also generally aren't technically advanced, so I'm wondering what the extent of training they'd consume outside of highly technical roles - if it is really value adding, or your typical corporate security training "don't click phishing links".
- jvanderbot 3y agoFly / steer by wire is not necessarily hackable. But the temptation to make everything UDP packets might be too strong in some industries.
- petertodd 3y agoTo be clear, ships have been using drive by _wire_ systems for decades. Even in WW2 rudder control on liberty ships was partially electronic: https://surveyship.blogspot.com/2015/09/liberty-ship-or-victory-ship.html https://surveyship.blogspot.com/2015/09/liberty-ship-or-vict... Of course, there's a _very_ big difference between a drive-by-wire system that has a set of dedicated electric wires with some simple communication scheme, and a networked, potentially hackable, system based on UDP packets.
- jyunwai 3y agoWhat are some of the solutions to an cybersecurity incident in-progress that involves taking over a moving ship? Much of the article talks about how it's important to prepare for this incident and that there's a simulation developed for this scenario, but the recommendations at the end look preventative instead of intended to fix an active incident. The article's preventative methods include "Install security updates as soon as they come and automatically as much as possible," "Do not assign administrator rights to end users," "Do not allow the use of weak passwords," use multi-factor authentication, don't install non-approved software, conduct risk assessments for computer systems in use, and make plans for cyber incidents in advance.
- pixl97 3y agoLol, preventative measures in this case are dumb as crap in the sense of they should be more "This is an extremely locked down industrial device that only executes signed code and has every port on the machine epoxied over" as just the starting paragraph. Unfortunately the exact details of what to do in a cyber incident are really closer to a per system plan. Honestly it's something that should be red teamed/blue teamed in a simulator many times, then dump some harbor pilots and captains in the sim against the red team to see what the common default reactions are.
- treflop 3y agoI would put all the ship systems on one bus. Then put the networked stuff on another bus. Then add a bridge that connects the two buses where you could just pull a fuse for a total disconnect. The bridge would have to have a very simple protocol to make it difficult for a worm to cross. That’s how I’d do it if I had to design a ship that also had to be networked.
- pixl97 3y agoOops, the technician was having some problems one day, so they plugged a wireless device on one bus and another on the other bus so even after pulling the fuse hackers still had control. Of course, if they are connected by default, it's very likely the hacker could establish control of a device on the secure side of the bus and load up something in NVRAM on it maintaining control even after a disconnect.
- treflop 3y agoWell I didn't add this but I would stipulate that the secure side would have almost no permanent memory at all if possible. I mean, we've been controlling boats without electronics for millenia so if you make it a priority to have no permanent memory, it should be achievable. It's doable. The biggest issue is that all these engineers are gonna cost $$$$ to design these systems and you will need to do a lot of QA, which also costs $$$$.
- reaperman 3y agoIt could be doable to transition back to pneumatic PID blocks by some royal decree but it’s definitely not going to be any real government’s solution. PLC’s are here to stay for all complex machines, and these ships are relatively complex. More interesting to talk about options that could realistically happen, and discuss pros/cons of various government/industry solutions that are actually likely to occur. I wish I could find a cutaway of a pneumatic PID block though. They’re quite amazing technology that implemented true P-I-D “calculation” logic in a purely physical form by using pressure of air at two inputs (setpoint, current value) to control one output penumatic pressure which in turn would control some valve a distance away. Really amazing engineering we had before electronic control! The air lines had a bad tendency to get clogged up though.
- nimbius 3y agoReading the posts I feel like a lot of HN doesnt fully understand what we're defending against? These ships are BIG. First, "manually control" engines and rudder isnt a thing. You're talking about a rudder that could be four stories tall. manual input is physically impossible and you wouldnt want it anyway. screw around with the rudder too much or too quickly and the underway mass of a 500,000 short-ton tanker will rip it out of the ship. a tanker engine starts at 2.5 stories tall (8-10m). Before ECM and modern SCADA automation these things could take an entire day to start. Everything from fueling to speed and fire suppression are intimately linked through a network on the ship. you can restrict these networks from the rest of the ship but its generally not advised. ship engines communicate with breaker panels, engine controls on the bridge, and telemetry from shipping companies for preventative maintenance. the solution to this is to have a SOC or rapid response team combined with redundant systems. assume a serious compromise is a failure condition and start the EPO/Mayday. all it takes is a hacker to add a couple extra zeroes to the idle speed of the engines and youre now a runaway ship, or worse, a runaway engine fire.
- jcgrillo 3y ago> First, "manually control" engines and rudder isnt a thing. You're talking about a rudder that could be four stories tall. Except it is actually a thing. Large ships have a separate emergency steering hydraulic circuit driven by its own generator, and operated by hand, commands given from the bridge by radio or telephone.
- nimbius 3y agotechnically true, but there is a common single point of failure many cadets and ships engineers fail to address in maritime shipping: https://www.imo.org/en/About/Conventions/Pages/International-Convention-for-the-Safety-of-Life-at-Sea-(SOLAS),-1974.aspx https://www.imo.org/en/About/Conventions/Pages/International... Namely that every tanker, chemical tanker or gas carrier of 10,000 gross tonnage and upwards or every other ship of 70,000 gross tonnage and upwards, the main steering gear shall comprise two or more identical power units. Theres no requirement for separate circuits in these large applications. "power units" meaning we just duplicate the engine/partial drivetrain and slave it to the SCADA system as a standby unit. these standby's can be started by using residual air in the compressor system (if available) or by diverting charge air from the compressor system to the standby. remember: we've been hacked, so compressor valves are likely to be locked shut (or worse, destroyed) until someone can get down to the engine room and force-open the valve manually. ships will often "flip" between engines for service intervals, so it can be useful for the SOC team during triaging the problem, but the failover likely wouldnt provide much help. to answer the question "couldnt we steer using air?" and yes you could, but it would be glacially slow. you might only have enough power air to move 5-10 degrees.
- transpute 3y agoFor this story: https://hnrankings.info/39852849/ https://hnrankings.info/39852849/
- gabriella4151 3y ago[flagged]
- hnburnsy 3y ago>What do you do if a hacker takes control of your ship? You could cut the hardline at the mainframe.
- negativelambda 3y ago>What do you do if a hacker takes control of your ship? Was it a phishing attack?!
- M95D 3y agoI'm not concerned about this kind of attack. Very few people live or work sufficiently close to the sea to be a potential target. Nobody can crash a container ship into the Pentagon. The damage a ship colision could do is probably mostly economic (a refinery, some docks, a bridge) and environmental (storage tanks near docks, a nuclear power station). It makes sense to do training for the shipping companies. Cyberattacks on shipping companies happend before, just not on ships. These attacks were ransomware. They don't intend to destroy their hacked assets, because no ransom would be paid, and they don't hack one system/target, they hack all of them at the same time.
- ramijames 3y agoEconomic targets are valid in war, and I'd be immensely worried if large ports were destroyed.
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- M95D 3y agoIn a war, large ports are very well defended, that includes at least artillery and mines.
- zbentley 3y agoRemember the impact to global trade (and commodity prices, and food uncertainty) caused by the Suez Canal blockage in 2021? Past a certain magnitude, "mostly economic" damage is extremely impactful as an attack.
- mikewarot 3y agoWhy aren't systems designed with data diodes to prevent the ingress of control while allowing external monitoring of critical infrastructure? It seems like a common sense measure that would make this scenario impossible.
- cchi_co 3y ago[dead]
- juanani 3y ago[dead]