Researchers uncovered a major security flaw in the temperature control systems that leads an attackers to gain access to the system remotely.
Most of these affected control systems are implemented in thousands of hospitals and supermarket chains all over the world including UK, Australia, Israel, Germany, the Netherlands, Malaysia, Iceland, and many other countries.
Temperature control system are implemented in ICS environment to perform various sensitive operation such as combustion, chemical reaction, fermentation, drying, calcination, distillation, concentration, extrusion, crystallization, and air conditioning etc.
Uncovered security flaws in Poorly configured temperature control systems with a default username and “1234” as the default password which is occasionally changed by the system admins.
Most of the vulnerable systems designed by Resource Data Management,
a Scotland-based remote monitoring solutions company.
Researchers from “safetydetective” discovered almost 7419 installations
Shodan’s search engine for internet-connected devices and it contain serious security flaws with unsecured HTTP protocol and the 9000 ports.
Spoke person from SafetyDetective said to GBHackers on Security via Email conversation “There are thousands of facilities (including hospitals and known chains like Target and Marks and Spencer) with hundreds of thousands of machines accessible online as we speak.”
Also, the security flaw that exists in the control systems allows anyone can be accessed through any browser by simply having the right URL which is easy to find via simple Google search.
One of the analysed vulnerable machines left with an unsecured URL and it could be accessed by just click a button and enter the default username and password.
If any malicious hackers could gain control these vulnerable machine, they can change refrigerator and freezer settings through this system and also modify user settings, alarm settings, and more.
SafetyDetective revealed other potential victims include:
- Menu Italiano, an Italian food manufacturer with locations in Italy, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, Germany, and China
- Muenstermann Kuelhaus am Grossmarket Dueseldorf, a cooling facility in Germany
- CCM Duopharma Biotech Berhad, a pharmaceutical company from Selangor, Malaysia
In the era of the Internet of Things, system administrators need to take special care to secure their remote systems, and never rely on a manufacturer’s defaults. Researchers said.
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