5 ms·

Would the last spy out please turn out the lights?

11 points by knieveltech 18y ago

paulhart 18y ago
No surprises there. I've written software for a electricity generation company that provides operator guidance on the level of generation requested by the market on a real-time basis. Eventually, said company is interested in linking that software with their control systems to automate the regulation of the power plant. This is, to my mind, kind of scary. The regulatory bodies seem to agree - should that happen my software would be subject to audit as a "critical cyber-asset".
- streety 18y ago
  What sort of network is/would this be on? I would like to think this would be on a dedicated network but is a vpn more common? I'm assuming this isn't going to be publicly accessible.
  - paulhart 18y ago
    The app lives on a dedicated server, running a "secure by default" OS (hint hint), on a private network. The network firewall is configured to only allow inbound connections for one protocol from two public IP addresses. All other public traffic is outbound-only.
tommusic 18y ago
Can anyone explain (or at least speculate) a little bit more about what kind of vectors the "cyberspies" might have used? The article didn't seem to imply physical presence, so my mind goes next to social engineering and e-mail trojans. I'm assuming our power grid doesn't have externally-accessible web servers that are linked to the actual management functions... http://uspowergrid/admin/show_grid.php?plant_id=19';DROP TABLE powergrid; That would be really frightening.
- tommusic 18y ago
  Some Slashdot-spelunking resulted in a few comments that seemed reasonable: http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1191575&cid=27502107 http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1191575&cid=27502... The poster makes some odd similes in advancing an argument that the biggest problem is not central computers, but the endpoint devices at substations and such. http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1191575&cid=27503427 http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1191575&cid=27503... This poster asserts that a drive to create interconnectability has resulted in more open access. I feel like I have more information, but not much more understanding of the answer to my original question. :-)
  - philwelch 18y ago
    The first comment notes that the security risk is in the protective relays. Well, maybe. It also carries an implication that digital relays are in and of themselves a security risk. I intern at a major manufacturer of digital protective relays, so I know how these communicate. (None of this, as far as I'm aware, is trade secret.) The purpose of a protective relay is to detect a line fault (lightning strikes, arc flash, the distribution line is knocked down). Upon detecting a line fault, the relay trips a circuit breaker to protect the rest of the grid from voltage irregularities. Relays are located along major distribution lines, and to find the substation these relays are located in, all you really have to do is find a major distribution line (easy enough from the air) and follow it until you reach a substation. There are maps of the major electrical distribution lines, and they're not difficult to find. The "smart grid" depends upon digital relays, but the grid has been smarter than we've given it credit for because digital relays have been around for 25 years. The power industry is very conservative—electromechanical relays worked for decades—so digital relays were a hard sell in the first place. So certain features were added to them. The first was fault location—a microprocessor-based digital relay, even in 1984, could calculate the location of a fault and store that information upon detection. Digital relays were and remain significantly less expensive than electromechanical relays, so they were originally sold simply as fault locators. (Due to cost, power consumption, testability, and maintainability, digital relays have advantages over electromechanical relays anyway, but these advantages weren't enough to convince power companies 25 years ago. Even now, 60% of North American relays are electromechanical, and 90% of world relays are electromechanical.) Over time, more features were added. One feature, developed largely in response to the New York blackouts a few years ago, is synchrophasors. Synchophasors allow a control station to monitor the voltage angles on distribution lines and maintain better control over them. This is a very, very time-sensitive process, but it also requires relays, synchrophasor processors, and computers loaded with control software to be networked together over large geographical areas. I'm not an EE so I don't have a full appreciation of what this means, but it's important. A typical protective relay from a top-of-the-line manufacturer accepts connections over an RS-232 serial connection, but it also supports TCP and telnet over an ethernet interface. Relays will often be connected to a single communications processor that will allow several relays at once to communicate over large areas. These comprocs, again, support RS-232 serial connections as well as networking. If you can access a comproc, you can access any of the relays, clocks, or other devices connected to it. That means you can cause trips, alter settings, and do all sorts of nasty stuff. Which makes it vitally important that power companies do things like change the default passwords and secure their communication networks—something largely outside the manufacturer's control. It's possible (and encouraged) to implement it securely but in practice it's not always done.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
biohacker42 18y ago
"The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid," So as to learn what NOT to do? In the last two big nor'easters I've spent half a week without electricity each. That's not what I would consider first world infrastructure. Winter happens - predictably so, it's time we stop being surprised by it.
- josefresco 18y ago
  Get a generator. I live in the Northeast US too and it took only 1 snow storm with no power (or water) for 5 days to take the plunge. Your problems are more local than 'national'. I agree we have problems all around, but your personal experience does not reflect the national challenges we face with our grid.
  - biohacker42 18y ago
    I rent, but if I buy, I'm buy a generator along with house. However, I've heard pretty much the same story about predictable outages from other parts of the country like the Midwest. Obviously the south has hurricanes, but I'm not sure even hurricanes should cause long term outages.

11 points by knieveltech 18y ago

No surprises there. I've written software for a electricity generation company that provides operator guidance on the level of generation requested by the market on a real-time basis. Eventually, said company is interested in linking that software with their control systems to automate the regulation of the power plant. This is, to my mind, kind of scary. The regulatory bodies seem to agree - should that happen my software would be subject to audit as a "critical cyber-asset".

streety 18y ago
What sort of network is/would this be on? I would like to think this would be on a dedicated network but is a vpn more common? I'm assuming this isn't going to be publicly accessible.
- paulhart 18y ago
  The app lives on a dedicated server, running a "secure by default" OS (hint hint), on a private network. The network firewall is configured to only allow inbound connections for one protocol from two public IP addresses. All other public traffic is outbound-only.

tommusic 18y ago

Can anyone explain (or at least speculate) a little bit more about what kind of vectors the "cyberspies" might have used? The article didn't seem to imply physical presence, so my mind goes next to social engineering and e-mail trojans. I'm assuming our power grid doesn't have externally-accessible web servers that are linked to the actual management functions... http://uspowergrid/admin/show_grid.php?plant_id=19';DROP TABLE powergrid; That would be really frightening.

tommusic 18y ago
Some Slashdot-spelunking resulted in a few comments that seemed reasonable: http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1191575&cid=27502107 http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1191575&cid=27502... The poster makes some odd similes in advancing an argument that the biggest problem is not central computers, but the endpoint devices at substations and such. http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1191575&cid=27503427 http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1191575&cid=27503... This poster asserts that a drive to create interconnectability has resulted in more open access. I feel like I have more information, but not much more understanding of the answer to my original question. :-)
- philwelch 18y ago
  The first comment notes that the security risk is in the protective relays. Well, maybe. It also carries an implication that digital relays are in and of themselves a security risk. I intern at a major manufacturer of digital protective relays, so I know how these communicate. (None of this, as far as I'm aware, is trade secret.) The purpose of a protective relay is to detect a line fault (lightning strikes, arc flash, the distribution line is knocked down). Upon detecting a line fault, the relay trips a circuit breaker to protect the rest of the grid from voltage irregularities. Relays are located along major distribution lines, and to find the substation these relays are located in, all you really have to do is find a major distribution line (easy enough from the air) and follow it until you reach a substation. There are maps of the major electrical distribution lines, and they're not difficult to find. The "smart grid" depends upon digital relays, but the grid has been smarter than we've given it credit for because digital relays have been around for 25 years. The power industry is very conservative—electromechanical relays worked for decades—so digital relays were a hard sell in the first place. So certain features were added to them. The first was fault location—a microprocessor-based digital relay, even in 1984, could calculate the location of a fault and store that information upon detection. Digital relays were and remain significantly less expensive than electromechanical relays, so they were originally sold simply as fault locators. (Due to cost, power consumption, testability, and maintainability, digital relays have advantages over electromechanical relays anyway, but these advantages weren't enough to convince power companies 25 years ago. Even now, 60% of North American relays are electromechanical, and 90% of world relays are electromechanical.) Over time, more features were added. One feature, developed largely in response to the New York blackouts a few years ago, is synchrophasors. Synchophasors allow a control station to monitor the voltage angles on distribution lines and maintain better control over them. This is a very, very time-sensitive process, but it also requires relays, synchrophasor processors, and computers loaded with control software to be networked together over large geographical areas. I'm not an EE so I don't have a full appreciation of what this means, but it's important. A typical protective relay from a top-of-the-line manufacturer accepts connections over an RS-232 serial connection, but it also supports TCP and telnet over an ethernet interface. Relays will often be connected to a single communications processor that will allow several relays at once to communicate over large areas. These comprocs, again, support RS-232 serial connections as well as networking. If you can access a comproc, you can access any of the relays, clocks, or other devices connected to it. That means you can cause trips, alter settings, and do all sorts of nasty stuff. Which makes it vitally important that power companies do things like change the default passwords and secure their communication networks—something largely outside the manufacturer's control. It's possible (and encouraged) to implement it securely but in practice it's not always done.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

biohacker42 18y ago

"The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid," So as to learn what NOT to do? In the last two big nor'easters I've spent half a week without electricity each. That's not what I would consider first world infrastructure. Winter happens - predictably so, it's time we stop being surprised by it.

josefresco 18y ago
Get a generator. I live in the Northeast US too and it took only 1 snow storm with no power (or water) for 5 days to take the plunge. Your problems are more local than 'national'. I agree we have problems all around, but your personal experience does not reflect the national challenges we face with our grid.
- biohacker42 18y ago
  I rent, but if I buy, I'm buy a generator along with house. However, I've heard pretty much the same story about predictable outages from other parts of the country like the Midwest. Obviously the south has hurricanes, but I'm not sure even hurricanes should cause long term outages.