Security holes identified in SCADA product

Originally released in 1998, 7600 systems for plant operation and monitoring have been sold, including power, chemical and petrochemical plants in Europe, the USA and Asia.

According to Rapid7 the vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to perform a denial of service (DoS) or get system privileges to execute arbitrary code. Hackers could also take screenshots to gather information about running projects or hijack SCADA communications. During its investigation, some CENTUM installations were identified that were vulnerable and directly connected the Internet.

ICS-CERT, the US Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team, together with Japanese counterpart JPCERT, have coordinated with Rapid7 and Yokogawa to mitigate these vulnerabilities.

Yokogawa has created a patch to mitigate the reported vulnerabilities. Older versions of the CENTUM CS 3000 will also need to be updated to the latest version of R3.09.50 before installing the patch. Rapid7 also recommends upgrading the software and protecting access to engineering projects by making sure they can only be accessed remotely through VPN or gateway products.