According to Joe Weiss and several other experts, it is not likely that the HART hack reported at Digital Bond’s S4 conference last week will work with a WirelessHART network. While the “man in the middle” attack reported by Alexander Bolshev does work for wired HART, the joining security of WirelessHART was designed specifically to keep a “man in the middle” attack from succeeding. Bolshev reports that he didn’t try to include WirelessHART in his demo.
The key findings in Bolshev’s attack remain that DTMs and transmission over IP continue to be vulnerabilities. This was, actually, known before, but Bolshev’s demonstration shows how they can be compromised from the instrument itself. That’s relatively new.
One expert, asking to remain unidentified, suggested that this might be a spur toward adoption of WirelessHART over wired HART.
What is true is that ANY network protocol can be compromised. It is becoming clearer with each of these demonstrations that effective security means more than writing “safe code” (whatever that is) and includes physical security as well as good training practices.
We can expect to see more demonstrations like this on industrial networking protocols. Does this mean they are unsafe? Mostly, no. If you’re looking for cookbook solutions, you probably won’t find them. What you’ll get is competent engineered solutions to security issues.
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