Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Malware Attacking SCADA Systems - from USB Device

A really interesting article that I think we should all be aware of -Microsoft Investigating Windows Zero Day Trojan brings to light an even bigger threat to our overall ecosystem and economy from Cyber Terrorism.

For those that may not be aware of the importance of SCADA systems - you may want to recall the brown out a few years ago that took out the electrical grid from Ohio to New York. Many do not know that it was believed to be caused by a virus that was infecting the reporting system. These systems power nuclear plants, electrical grids, oil pipelines, etc.

This article brings to light very clearly that as a Global economy we have to think about the technologies we put in place and their impact. These types of viruses should not only be a concern for USB devices on SCADA systems but also those embarking on their Journey into client virtualization.

Why worry? Virtualization exponentially increases the threat of security risks to companies and our underlying infrastructure. How? VM sprawl and undetected/unregistered virtual applications that have security holes in their virtual operating systems. While SCADA systems are pretty locked down - if a USB device can communicate with the rootkit of the underlying operating system what about virtual operating systems that can go undetected by traditional inventory programs?

For VMs in the wild - they may not have inventory installed or be accessible on the client systems (not like VSphere in the datacenter) when the VMs are offline. Application virtualization poses an even greater threat here.

Typically inventory searches the registry for key elements that identify there is an application installed and Patch Management tools will apply the patch to the underlying OS. But if the OS is virtual unless it is specifically integrated or programmed to do so - the traditional tools will not see the virtual OS or be able to patch it. If the person using the virtual application has administrative rights to their machine - then the virus can continue to exploit the vulnerability within the virtual operating system and pass through to the underlying PC.

What are ways around this?
  1. Lock down the PC - disallow administrative rights. This is hard to do of course for some organizations as many legacy applications still require administrative rights to function.

  2. Register Virtual Application - ensure the virtual application allows you to register it with the underlying Operating system (For example with ThinApp they use ThinReg). Do not use technology from vendors that do not provide some mechanism for alerting the physical system that the application is there.

  3. Ask you Inventory & Patch Management Vendors if they support that application type - some vendors do have integration with traditional tools such as SCCM, or BMC. Tools like BMC Bladelogic for Clients (Marimba) have the ability to provide inventory for applications deployed through their system. This is useful to at least provide base inventory when there is no clear out of the box integration. I would also recommend requesting support from the Systems Management Patch Vendors to provide some type of hook into these solutions to quickly patch them without repackaging. This last part is one of the biggest inhibitors to broad scale adoption of application virtualization beyond just a handful of applications.

  4. Create Process with Service Level Agreements to patch the Virtual OS - Many companies I have worked with over the years have set SLAs to quickly apply patches to their many computers out there. How do they do it across dozens of virtual applications? It depends on the architecture of the virtual application. Make sure you work with your Vendors Services team to create a Disaster Recovery plan for Zero Day viruses such as this to ensure the Virtual OS receive the same patches on a monthly basis as part of your overall patch process.

  5. Only run virtual applications in User Mode - When possible eliminate the administrative rights. Most of the SCADA systems are pretty locked down. What makes the USB trojan even more worrisome. Companies that are choosing to leverage application virtualization should take their overall imaging and rights management process to the next level. Now that you have technology that can lock down access rights - use it.

Some virtualization vendors will claim anti-injection etc. Which is great but you are only as strong as your weakest link. It is important to really think through the security ramifications prior to deploying virtualization technology (Virtual Machines or Applications) on clients. Make sure they fit into your existing SLAs and don't put your company at risk.

Regards,
Jeanne Morain
jmorain@yahoo.com

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