Offshore Drilling Rigs Vulnerable To Hackers 116
Hugh Pickens writes "Foreign Policy magazine reports that a research team from the SINTEF Group, an independent Norwegian think tank, has warned oil companies worldwide that offshore oil rigs are highly vulnerable to hacking as they shift to unmanned robot platforms where vital operations — everything from data transmission to drilling to sophisticated navigation systems that maintain the platform's position over the wellhead — are controlled via wireless links to onshore facilities. 'The worst-case scenario, of course, is that a hacker will break in and take over control of the whole platform,' says Martin Gilje Jaatun, adding that it hasn't happened yet, but computer viruses have caused personnel injuries and production losses on North Sea platforms. The list of potential cyberattackers includes ecowarriors aiming to jack up an oil firms' production costs, extortionists drawn to oil firms' deep pockets, and foreign governments engaging in a strategic contest for ever-more-scarce global oil reserves, says Jeff Vail, a former counterterrorism and intelligence analyst with the US Interior Department. 'It's underappreciated how vulnerable some of these systems are,' says Vail. 'It is possible, if you really understood them, to cause catastrophic damage by causing safety systems to fail.'"
A proper shell account (Score:5, Funny)
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Or swim leisurely alongside it.
They're not very fast.
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Ahh, there it is! whooooooosh.
Astounding (Score:3, Informative)
computer viruses have caused personnel injuries and production losses on North Sea platforms
They run Windows-based control software, and don't take the most basic security precautions such as banning web browsing and operators from executing unsigned files on management consoles?
Even Microsoft will have in its smallprint ... (Score:3, Insightful)
... (along with most other computer/OS manufacturers) that the OS is *NOT* to be used in situations where failure of the system may lead to injuries or loss of life. The fact that a consumer OS is being used at all, never mind one so suscpetable to malware, in a scenario wheres peoples lives may hang in the balance is frankly staggering.
What is the alternative? (Score:1)
The fact that a consumer OS is being used ... where people's lives may hang in the balance is frankly staggering
And your alternative is...? A specially built OS from Joe's basement? Yes, that will be much safer because we all know Joe is a pretty good programmer. And I can't see any problem with hiring people to work with, maintain, and extend Joe's system, because everyone will be so familiar with it. Yes, they'll be producing useful code in no time.
Most of the medical systems I work with (where lives hang in the balance) are plain ol' WinXP. It actually works out pretty well because finding someone who know
Re:What is the alternative? (Score:4, Insightful)
A) Microsoft OS (which specifically states that it is NOT FOR USE WHERE PEOPLE MAY DIE)
B) Some fucking idiot with 3 days of C programming classes making a custom operating system.
Alright, I guess I have to explain this to you.
It is possible to hire experienced, knowledgeable people to develop custom operating systems. It is also possible to have that code thoroughly reviewed, tested, etc. to make sure it won't fail in such a way that people die.
Yes, it's more expensive to create/maintain/fix. But on the other hand, people won't die this way.
Seriously, do you use carabiners that say "not for climbing" when you go climbing because they're "cheaper" and "easier to replace"? If not, then you probably should so that you may rid us of your misguided thought that devices that say "NOT FOR USE WHERE PEOPLE MAY DIE" are perfectly suited to things where people may die.
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"And your alternative is...? A specially built OS from Joe's basement?"
Yes. What OSes do you think run aircraft avionics, train safety control systems and so on? Fucking Windows with a VB app on top?? Get a bloody clue!
"Most of the medical systems I work with (where lives hang in the balance) are plain ol' WinXP"
That says a lot about the indifference and stupidity of most medical organisations that it does about the suitability of using a consumer OS in safety critical systems.
"Seems like a reasonable trade
So what? (Score:2, Insightful)
We're talking about something a bit more critical than online text messaging for the facebook generation.
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Fair point.
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It confuses me to no end how many systems are based on Windows PCs, even though they only perform trivial tasks that wouldn't pose a challenge to something like a 16-bit home computer of 20 years ago, when operating systems booted of floppy disks and 2MB of RAM were luxurious. Those systems should run a stripped-down embedded OS, not a desktop OS. I've seen a self-checkout cash register system boot up: Java on top of Windows. Somebody got paid for that, handsomely too I suspect.
Re:Astounding (Score:4, Informative)
"I've seen a self-checkout cash register system boot up: Java on top of Windows"
Back in the early 90s I used to work for a firm that did checkout software. When I arrived it was written in C with a large amount of assembler on top of DOS and ran at a blistering pace even on a 286. Then some gimp of a manager got taken to lunch by some greasy haired sales rep and next thing we knew it was being re-written in VB & Powerbuilder (yeah , I know, laugh now but people used to think it was cool) on top of Win 3.1.
Upshot? It ran at about 1/4 the speed and crashed far more often plus the PCs needed to be 386 minimum - cue lots of upgrading by customers.
Apparently they call it "progress".
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The idea is to have something that people can maintain in the future. Maybe they didn't make the best of platform/language choices but there wasn't much else available at the time and the goal was the right one.
At least Windows is still around and can probably still run that app. If they'd chosen the "best" platform available on consumer hardware back then (maybe OS/2...) they'd have been just as badly off in the long term as if they'd stuck with MS-DOS.
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"The idea is to have something that people can maintain in the future."
Sorry - the idea is to provide the best value for money to customers. Charging more for something slower and less reliable that required them to upgrade their hardware while they were at it is not.
Re:Astounding (Score:5, Insightful)
This whole thread is on the wrong track.
Safety on an oil rig should not be in software. It should be mechanical. A big fat mechanical-reflex operated titanium counterweight that closes a wellhead when pressure is lost can't be hacked in software. Yea, they can shut the rig down, but catastrophic permanent environmental damage is avoided.
The same goes for all last-line safety systems. They should be 100% mechanical, uninfluenced by these unreliable, capricious devices we call computers.
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The same goes for all last-line safety systems. They should be 100% mechanical, uninfluenced by these unreliable, capricious devices we call computers.
Totally agree...and I think most people who work IT for a living would agree with you.
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But you don't ever want to get in a position where this ultimate protection is needed because the recovery is often extremely expensive.
And these days it is indeed, with some Unix exceptions, the rule that anything electronic is running on Microsoft products with all the associated problems.
Luckily there are still a few Old Hands out there that r
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The ultimate safety is dealt with along lines like you propose, big valves that are self contained with autonomous power like spring loaded or Nitrogen charged.
Given that TFA clearly states that injuries have occurred due to viruses, I'd say they are NOT doing that even though they SHOULD.
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Of course not. That doesn't mean that the final protection from those injuries shouldn't be at a mechanical or electrical level such that the computer can't cause them. Further, if the safeties are triggered, the system should shut down until diagnoses or optionally, all humans are out of the area (but still diagnose and correct the problem of course).
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Speaking as someone who's been working offshore for over 20 years now, this is exactly what the people who do this for a living think too.
We also see this week's "wonderful new system" fall over and die at regular intervals. Which is why we nod our heads when the sales idiots bring
Re:Astounding (Score:5, Insightful)
How is going from C + ASM on DOS to VB + Powerbuilder on Win 3.1 more maintainable? Are you seriously suggesting that all embedded systems should be running a desktop OS for maintainability reasons (or that no embedded software is maintainable)?
I remember using VB4 back in the day (Win98, I think) and even then the VB IDE had a hard time opening VB3 projects. Good luck trying to get Visual Studio 2008 to open a VB2 project. With C and ASM, at least you can code the project in a variety of IDEs--even plaint-text editors. What are you going to use to open an .frx file other than VB?
Furthermore, you can write maintainable C/ASM code for an embedded RISC/ARM processor just as you can write unmaintainable spaghetti code for an x86 Windows platform. If you're writing software for a desktop platform, you're going to have to update it every few years to keep up with changes in the mainstream desktop platform (new OS, new processors, etc.). If you're writing software for embedded systems then you'll only need to update your software when you decide that you want to change processors, chipsets, or add new features. Re-compiling your code for the next version of the ARM processor is likely to be easier than re-writing your entire application to use a different set of system libraries.
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I guess you have yet to learn the golden rule, he who has enough gold to give anyone, can make the rules, with his or YOUR company. I wonder how much kickbacks your manager got by signing up with the NEW company to provide the NEW and IMPROVED POS....seriously, this is why so many bad apps and companies are still capable of doing business, they have greasers, smooth over the guy in charge of buying, and gets them kickbacks, and the company suffers a downward spiral, as the NEW app barely holding at the seam
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I'm not proposing that cash register software should be written in assembly language and run on 16bit processors. I just don't understand why a cash register needs a copy of Solitaire and Internet Explorer, especially when the application doesn't even use anything Windows specific because it runs inside the JavaVM.
Where it the article... (Score:3, Interesting)
... does it say they used Windows? At a recent conference on software safety and security, I heard a presentation on this topic that indicated that a lot of these incidents are like the one quoted in the article - a disgruntled employee or ex-employee with knowledge of how the system works, hacks into the wireless control network, and causes damage by incorrectly operating valves or altering sensor readings, causing an inappropriate reaction by the system. The example quoted was a water treatment facility t
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computer viruses have caused personnel injuries and production losses on North Sea platforms.
In this day and age there aren't many DOS viruses floating around on closed systems.
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Actually, sorry. Inadequate access controls and credential security on the wireless control network and insufficient encryption of data channels is an even worse situation indicating an even greater level of incompetence (or lack of existence) of network security staff.
Wireless control networks are inherently dangerous. When an employee is released, their credentials must be made invalid immediately, and the encryption keys should be changed frequently.
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Maybe the oil industry should look for alternate network technologies like DECnet or SNA to keep the majority of the hackers out?
Sure - it will cost some more in acquiring the competence, but on the other hand the risk for a penetration from the internet is a bit lower.
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Competence is the problem. If they're not competent enough with IP on Ethernet to secure it and design it to prevent internet access, what hope do they have of properly securing their DECnet or SNA infrastructure, and yet still being able to manage it all?
They can make sure internet connectivity is impossible by using IPv6 only, implementing 802.1x with strong L2 switch security options, using an ample number of subnets, not connecting routers to the internet (or using ACLs both upstream and downstream
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The "Astounding" post above says "They run Windows-based control software". That *is* astounding, and should be considered criminally negligent.
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In all honesty though, this (along with a billion other things) needs to be considered by competent computer admins and not jackasses sitting in the leather chairs.
The "astounding" post might say that... (Score:2)
I remember how this one goes (Score:3, Funny)
So, you hack in, and then it turns out that the Patriots have released nanomachines to control the flow of phonemes as part of the S5 program to eliminate the meal of breakfast in collaboration with the reverse vampires.
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I think you need a "DaVinci" virus involved too
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So, you hack in, and then it turns out that the Patriots have released nanomachines to control the flow of phonemes as part of the S5 program to eliminate the meal of breakfast in collaboration with the reverse vampires.
I think you need a "DaVinci" virus involved too
Yes! And only then can you do it for the Lulz.
How long... (Score:3, Insightful)
"What happened to Bob?"
"He was Therac-25ed by the drillbot when the control system went down."
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I think its much snappier to say "Therac'd". As in:
sounds like (Score:3, Funny)
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And only one man can take them on to save the world!
And, unfortunately, he blew himself up while blowing up an asteroid to save the world a few years back...
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-Oz
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Not quote the same plot, but since Michael Bay did have his fingers in the franchise, you did describe the last scene in the first "episode" of the Transformers [tfwiki.net] cartoon... except it was robotic "terrorists" taking over an oil rig...
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A movie with the eye-candy of the Transformers series combined with legendary acting skills.
This christmas, Casey Ryback's cooking some botnet stew
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Would have fit right in line with Die Hard 4
Hack The Planet (Score:5, Funny)
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Don't worry, Dan Brown completely obfuscated the code for that.
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there are those in the tech world that consider said movie a dirty hack, at best...
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Captain Planet (Score:2)
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Gonna take pollution down to zero.
With extreme prejudice.
SINTEF is no "think tank" (Score:5, Informative)
SINTEF [sintef.no] is not a think tank, it is a major applied-research institution [wikipedia.org]. It is similar (with due proportions) to the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany.
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And like Fraunhofer they are involved in several fields. One of them is creating some of the software systems at risk.
I think what the SINTEF guy is saying is: "My coworkers in the floor above my office (SINTEF Petroleum Research) doesn't know how to create secure software." If anything goes wrong in the Integrated Operations projects SINTEF is involved in Martin can say "I told you so!"
http://www.sintef.no/Home/Information-and-Communication-Technology-ICT/Software-Engineering-Safety-and-Security/Research-g
The original reports (Score:4, Informative)
The SINTEF-report can be found here:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/8v34n016j3648872/ [springerlink.com]
and the base report for a successful attack is here:
http://sislab.no/redteam.pdf [sislab.no]
Some things should require engineering licenses (Score:1)
Well, maybe not an engineering license but something with a professional license.
Communications that involve equipment that can kill or do a lot of harm to the planet should be reviewed and stamped by someone who can certify that the systems are safe to use and resistant to attacks by likely attackers and that any failure will be graceful, at least from a "people don't die, oceans to get heavily polluted, and the nation's oil supply isn't choked off for too long" standpoint. Of course, as the definition of
WEP (Score:1)
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-Oz
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If they are using traditional WiFi, then there's an easy way to protect the oil platform. Surround it with frikkin sharks, frikkin sharks with frikkin laser beams.
SINTEF should not Cry Wolf (Score:5, Informative)
Disclaimer: My first job after graduation was with SINTEF, next I worked 24 years for Hydro/StatoilHydro (Norway's largest offshore oil operator), where I (among many other things) specified how the production and admin networks should be separated on each platform.
First of all: Most North Sea platforms use fiber links these days, microwave is only there as a backup in case something cuts the fiber, which means that if you want to use the radio link as your attack point, you must first locate and disable the fiber(s).
Second, the production networks, which is the only part which can directly affect platform infrastructure has significantly better security than the office/admin net.
I.e. you would first have to hack into the regular StatoilHydro network, then find a way to pass through the admin/process firewall before you could even start to try to take over one or more control computers. (And afaik none of these run any form of open source SCADA sw.)
Finally, the 'integrated operations' mentioned in the article consists of special on-shore operations rooms which have strict physical security checks: The computers inside these rooms are indeed part of the production network, they have no direct links at all to the office/admin net and/or the Internet.
Terje
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(And afaik none of these run any form of open source SCADA sw.)
I didn't know there was any form of open source SCADA. Besides, what does open vs. closed source have to do with hackability of the machines on the control network?
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So by "wireless" they mean "microwave" which even if obsolete military encryption methods are used (microwave comms are used for US naval comms) it is in no way like wireless communications used onshore. Microwave is directional as well meaning you would have to get inline with the beam. Correct?
OTHOH, the way Norwegian oil companies operate as opposed to US companies operate offshore makes the US comanpies look like a bunch of boyscouts, from what I've been told. Always cutting corners, bad management, und
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Please note I did not write US oil companies...
30 - 40 years ago the US oilfield gave the world it's How-To, since some 15 years it's the other way around.
But it must be said that when safety is critical the simplest system is still superior, when the 10 pound sledge hammer doesn't cut it you get a 15 pound hammer.
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Windows strikes again !! (Score:1)
What is this guy pushing? (Score:1)
Most rely on the decades-old supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) software, written in an era when the "open source" tag was more important than security, said Jeff Vail, a former counterterrorism and intelligence analyst with the U.S. Interior Department.
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And oddly enough, it seems like the guy is pro-open source from his blog [jeffvail.net]. I guess it is the FP "journalist" misquoted him to satisify his own prejudices.
Have the Superman movies taught us nothing? (Score:1)
Well... (Score:2)
Problem I see with totally automated rigs is, there are some situations that will arise that require humans to work around. Teleoperated rigs just won't be able to handle it without some "hands on" work. I've got some friends in the drilling game (water & core sampling here in the Southwest), and they tell me that every hole drilled is different, each presents its own set of problems. Until they build true machine intelligence, pe
The real problem is OPC... (Score:3, Informative)
These days everybody runs on Windows XP. No problem there; XP machines can be made secure. The real problem is this quote from the report: "We have performed penetration testing on OPC, which is a central component in process control systems on oil installations.". OPC protocol is based on DCOM. And most people want to do DCOM via a network to remote platforms. That is where the problems start. DCOM is horrible. There are solutions: Matrikon makes a good tunneler program for example, other SCADA and DCS vendors also do tunneling of OPC via safer methods than DCOM over a wide area network.
Conclusion: the report has some good points, the summary in the above link is FUD.
Disclaimer: I work with DCS's (also on remote oil platforms) for a living...
Put human workers back (Score:1)
I hope the oil companies will at least... (Score:3, Insightful)
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The thing about that is that to have one or to people there you need to have the whole set of things to keep people alive. Think space travel (albeit to a far lesser extent.)
One of the projects I was working on called for unmanned operation but people to go onto the platform for offloading (every two weeks.) That caused a real fun 'discussion' coz if you're going to put someone on there every two weeks, you may as well leave them there f
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these "rigs" are more and more a bunch of hardware some 300+ meters below sea level, that gets serviced at regular intervals by ships carrying remote operated subs.
all this saves on building costs and having to shuttle man and materials out into the middle of nowhere, in all kinds of weather.
While it's important to secure these things- (Score:2)
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The management of oil companies comes out of the ranks and doesn't understand electronics one bit.
So the moment a Microsoft salesperson comes by with a nice powerpoint simulation of how you can cut down on the workforce they are bought.
Until the cleaner puts his USB drive in one of the many networked computers and the resulting virus outbreak causes total loss of control.
A scena
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TFA seems to have some dubious facts (Score:1)
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There are a couple of "iffy" items in the article. First, how can an oil leak detector cause oil leaks (let alone spills)?
If you're an attacked were to determine there was an existing leak, then disable the leak monitor, then command a pump to increase pressure, you could cause damage depending on the pressure rating of the pipes/fittings in question. Other than that, I agree that it would be difficult to cause damage with simply a sensor alone (unless it's a critical sensor in an industrial process).
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When process control in heavy industry is going down very dangerous things can and will and did happen.
Every oil company has already had it's share and yet they (management, not operators) often continue to act like total noobs.
Because the cheaper solution gets you promoted and the clean up is for the next guy.
I also heard that (Score:1)