Insecure by Design in the Backbone of Critical Infrastructure

Abstract

We inspected 45 actively deployed Operational Technology (OT) product families from ten major vendors and found that every system suffers from at least one trivial vulnerability. We reported a total of 53 weaknesses, stemming from insecure by design practices or basic security design failures. They enable attackers to take a device offline, manipulate its operational parameters, and execute arbitrary code without any constraint. We discuss why vulnerable products are often security certified and appear to be more secure than they actually are, and we explain complicating factors of OT risk management.