Switches Get Stitches

This talk will introduce you to Industrial Ethernet Switches and their vulnerabilities. These are switches used in industrial environments, like substations, factories, refineries, ports, or other other homes of industrial automation. In other words: DCS, PCS, ICS & SCADA switches. The researchers focus on attacking the management plane of these switches, because we all know that industrial system protocols lack authentication or cryptographic integrity. Thus, compromising any switch allows the creation of malicious firmwares for further MITM manipulation of a live process. Not only will vulnerabilities be disclosed for the first time (exclusively at 31C3), but the methods of finding those vulnerabilities will be shared. All vulnerabilities disclosed will be in the default configuration state of the devices. While these vulnerabilities have been responsibly disclosed to the vendors, SCADA/ICS patching in live environments tends to take 1-3 years. At least three vendors switches will be examined: Siemens, GE, Garrettcom. Therefore, this presentation matters to any hackers or anarchists, who believe they have a right to examine the resilience and security of the infrastructures that support their communities. Own your own critical infrastructures today!