Industrial Systems are widely believed to be air-gapped. At previous Black Hat conferences, people have demonstrated individual utilities control systems directly connected to the internet. However, this is not an isolated incident of failure, but rather a disturbing trend. By visualising results from SHODAN over a 2 1/2 year period, we can see that there are thousands of exposed systems around the world. By using some goelocation, and vulnerability pattern matching to service banners we can see their rough physical location and the numbers of standard vulnerabilities they are exposed to.
This allows us to look at some statistics about the industrial system security posture of whole nations and regions. During the process of this project I worked with ICS-CERT to inform asset-owners of their exposure and other CERT teams around the world. The project has reached out to 63 countries, and sparked discussion of convergence towards the public internet of many insecure protocols and devices. The original dissertation can be found here:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~fms27/papers/2011-Leverett-industrial.pdf
and a bit of previous press here:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/10000-control-systems-online/
Eireann Leverett studied Artificial Intelligence and Software Engineering at Edinburgh University and went on to get his Masters in Advanced Computer Science at Cambridge. He studied under Frank Stajano and Jon Crowcroft in Cambridge's computer security group. In between he worked for GE Energy for 5 years and has just finished a six month engagement with ABB in their corporate research Dept. He now proudly joins IOActive to focus on Smart Grid and SCADA systems. His MPhil thesis at Cambridge was on the increasing connectivity of industrial systems to the public internet. He focussed on finding the cheapest way to find and visualise these exposures and associated vulnerabilities. He shared the data with ICS-CERT and other CERT teams globally, and presents regularly to academics and government agencies on the security of industrial systems. More importantly, he is a circus and magic enthusiast, and likes to drink beer.