The current “hot word” in security is SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) systems. The rumors of Russia attacking a water pump system in Illinois and the actual attack of a water treatment plant in Houston have all been in the news in the last few months.

SCADA systems are used in many industrial applications – water treatment, chemical manufacturing, product manufacturing, etc. More and more industries are becoming automated with robots and all kinds of other neat technologies replacing humans (and theoretically human error). Something has to control these systems, otherwise, you’re just replacing the labor force with folks who know how to control these automation tools. But something important to take away is that SCADA systems can literally control life and death situations – water treatment, medical device manufacture, chemical creation. If something goes wrong with these systems, the resulting device/product may kill someone.

The life and death situation is relatively new in the “hacker” community. Generally, the goal is money, and while it would really suck to not have money in your bank account, it’s very rare that that situation would directly kill you. What’s also new is that the makers of these automation tools have decided that having these tools connected to a network would be useful – without considering the security implications.

These devices have not historically been connected to a network. A computer sat on the manufacturing floor that controlled the device(s), and humans walked up to the computer and programmed it, or read data from it, or whatever needed to be done. Now, this computer is networked and takes commands from and sends data to other systems on the network. Computers are fundamentally dumb things – they do what they’re told, and in the case of SCADA systems, don’t necessarily check to see who told them to do something. So, if an attacker gets onto the same network that these automation devices are on and can figure out how to send commands (trivial for most attackers), they can make the device do what they want.

So, how do you protect against this? Until the automation device makers come up with better security – you want to keep these devices in an “inner sanctum”, protected from the rest of your network. Use a firewall with very specific rulesets – based on IP address or use sneakernet to transfer data from the systems on USB/hard drive. At the same time, ask your vendors for timelines on when they expect to have security built into their systems. You may not be able to replace all of your systems, but you can not buy from vendors who don’t take security seriously when you need new/replacement systems.

Around this time of year, many people receive new devices and gadgets as gifts, and some of those gadgets turn out to be smart phones. But smart phone security is very tricky to pin down, as there are multiple vendors and platforms to take into consideration, not to mention the speed at which smart phone technology is evolving. So when I came across this Top 10 iPhone Security Tips whitepaper (pdf), I knew that it was probably a good thing that it attempts to target a specific platform. However, after reading through it, I think that many of the things McAfee points out can also apply to a Droid or BlackBerry. And so, by stripping away the platform-specific details, we arrive at a pretty decent list of things a new smart phone owner can do to achieve some basic smartphone security:

• Enable passcode/lock

Mobile phones have had passcode capabilities for a long time. Make sure you’re using it, since a passcode lock is often the first line of defense.

• Erase all data before a return, repair, or resale

If you will no longer be the owner in possession of the device, it’s best to erase everything you can first. Everything. If you can do a factory reset, do so, because your phone constantly records information and there is always some data that isn’t easily found, let alone purged.

• Regularly update firmware

I’m guilty of not doing this– sometimes the update notification will sit around for a week before I finally give it permission to run. But this is one of the easier things to do, since it’s mostly automatic.

• Don’t run shady apps

Just like with a personal computer, if you run unknown or untrusted applications, you substantially increase your chances of getting got. So if you don’t want to get got, be prudent about what apps you run on your device.

• Take advantage of the web browser’s security

For smartphones with native web browser apps, be sure to use the security features to clear caches and stored passwords when it’s necessary. Just because a web browser is on a mobile device doesn’t mean it’s a security lightweight. Check out the “settings” or “options” to see just how much your mobile phone web browser can do to help you out.

• If you’re not using it, disable it

I’m also guilty of leaving stuff running unnecessarily. Be careful about leaving debug mode enabled, Bluetooth and wifi on, etc. Generally speaking, the more doors you leave unlocked, the lighter you sleep at night. Turning off unused services when they aren’t needed is a good habit to form, even outside the realm of security.

• Secure that email

In addition to providing native web browser apps, many smartphones also come bundled with a native email app. Check the settings for these apps to take advantage of any security features they’re offering (such as SSL/TLS).

• Use a phone tracker

The GPS can be bad for privacy if you are reckless with it. However, it can also be a powerful tool to help you recover a lost/stolen device. I believe the iPhone 4 has a built in device-finding service (complete with a remote wipe). But even if you have a different smartphone, there is almost certainly an app that provides some remote tracking for lost devices (i.e. Where’s My Droid app for Android).

This certainly isn’t a comprehensive list, but it should be enough to get both new and old smartphone users thinking about general mobile device security in a healthy way.

I’m not too ashamed of myself to whore out a few select email addresses for personal gain, or even promote a certain company by liking or retweeting something if it will benefit me more than the actions required, but I always keep a hesitant nature towards most of these promotions. I mean who doesn’t like free money?

I received an email the other day supposedly sponsored by a reputable programmer-related site. What it entailed was signing up for a big vendor’s developer program. If I did so, they would send me a $15 gift certificate to one of the major online retailers. I’m trying to keep all parties in this matter anonymous simply because I do not want to promote anything involved in this so-called promotion, and the actual parties involved are irrelevant. The email went something like this:

 

Happy Holidays Developers!

Get a $15 [online retailer] Gift Certificate by joining the [vendor] Developer Program (no charge!)

Thanks to your [programmer site] participation, here’s all you have to do!

1. Visit The [hyperlink to vendor site] and register at no cost!

2. [vendor] will send you a validation email: confirm your registration following the URL provided in the email which will prompt you to choose a password

3. Once you have chosen a password, [vendor] will then send you a password reset email: forward the password reset email and the sign up email address used to [promotional site email]

4. Once verified on our end, a gift certificate will be sent to you promptly after the program ends!

Hurry! This is limited to the first 600 respondents, one per person.

For full terms and conditions please visit [marketing link to promotional site]

Step 3 is the one that caught my eye here. You want me to forward you an email sent to me that allows me to reset my password? By doing this I would essentially be sending the promoter an email that contained a link with an embedded token allowing them to authenticate as myself and then change my password, essentially gaining access to my account at this vendor site. Mind you, this isn’t exactly a critical account. But still these are very poor security practices.

So, what’s to be learned from this? Pay attention to what’s being asked of you. If it seems slightly out of the ordinary, it probably is. Inboxes are being filled with more and more spam these days, some make it through, and some even seem legitimate. It’s up to the users to educate themselves on how to detect and avoid these types of situations. In closing, I’ll leave you with a list of things you can do to help protect yourself.

• If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. So use common sense people!
• Do not click on links in emails – period! Just because it says it’s a link to SiteA doesn’t mean it’s actually going there.
• Enable spam controls on your email client – if you’re using Outlook, Thunderbird, or even Gmail’s web interface – they are all pretty good at detecting what may or may not be spam.
• Use multiple emails or use gmail’s ‘+’ email features or mailnull to help sort out those mailing list emails and let you know which emails are being distributed to others.
• Do not load images by default or at all.
• Do not enable scripting at all!

These are just the tip of the iceberg, but you get the idea. Help protect yourself and you’ll be helping to protect all of us.

I’ve mentioned Whole Disk Encryption in the past. There are a number of products, both free and paid, which will allow you to encrypt your entire hard disk, or the hard disks on your servers.

In a recent study whole disk encryption (referred to as FDE in the study) has been shown to significantly hamper investigation. Basically, the encryption is too good. Even with techniques like cryogenic RAM freezing it’s often unlikely that the encryption can be bypassed.

But there’s a huge, gaping hole in such protection: you can’t USE encrypted data. For it to be accessible and usable, it has to be decrypted. (In other news, it is not possible to open properly locked doors, nor to pass through walls.)

And for the last few years, there has been a product out there which makes it possible to remove a computer without powering it down. This product is called HotPlug and it can be used, in conjunction with a portable power source, to remove a machine without disrupting its functioning. Be sure to watch the video.

Of course, lawful search and seizures aren’t the problem per se. But this does show that WDE isn’t a panacea. As with any security, it needs to be backed up by other defenses as well. Physical control trumps software security anyway. Which means, unremarkably, that even the newest technology doesn’t necessarily provide more security than a good padlock.