Skip to main content

Hacked! SCPI Protocol Vulnerabilty; Measurement Instruments Could be Hacked!


A leading cyber-security firm recently alerted all the netizens about a vulnerability discovered in the measurement tools that support the Standard Commands for Programmable Instruments (SCPI) protocol, mentioned reports.

According to sources, SCPI is an ASCII-based standard especially crafted out for the purposes of testing and measurement machines that came into existence in 1990.

SCPI still happens to be used quite a lot given its easy and user-friendly interface and the inclusion of commands that could help alter any setting on the devices.

In recent times, most of the measurement devices are connected to networks and in some cases even to the internet. Hence, SCPI’s holding no authentication mechanism is a matter of risk and insecurity for all its users.

Per sources, when one of the major cyber-security research firms ran analytic research on SCPI they uncovered all the devices that use it and therefore are vulnerable to cyber-crime.

Per reports, the aforementioned measurement devices encompass of multimeters, signal analyzers, oscilloscopes, data acquisition systems, and waveform generators.

The researchers carried forward their analysis on different brands and different products of the same type and came across the fact that all the vendors’ products could be equally susceptible to cyber-attacks of similar nature if they used SCPI.

A multimeter was analyzed by the researcher wherein they found that its web and other interfaces were quite easily available and were very easy to get to as they were neither password-protected nor had any security functions by default.

Therefore, any cyber-attack that even a basic attacker plans could have a high possibility of success as the “configuration panel” could be very easily accessed and the password could be changed to anything in accordance with the attacker’s whims.

And as if all this wasn’t enough, the attacker could actually configure the measurement instruments to cause physical harm to people. The devices could be set to show illogical and unsystematic text any number of times, as well.

Per sources, the memory of the measurement instruments could be written for a definite number of times but incessant writing could lead to the devices’ physical distortion which couldn’t be reversed without changing the parts.

The power supply units of the devices could also be easy targets for attackers, according to sources, and could trigger DoS leading to physical corruption of the device.



source https://www.ehackingnews.com/2020/01/hacked-scpi-protocol-vulnerabilty.html
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Betting and Gambling Websites under Cyberattack from Chinese Hackers

Since last year's summers, Chinese hackers have been targeting South Asian companies that own online gambling and betting websites. The gambling companies in South Asia have confirmed the hacks, whereas rumors of cyberattacks on betting websites have also emerged from Europe, and the Middle East, however, the rumors are yet to confirm, says the reports of cybersecurity group Trend Micro and Talent-Jump. Cybersecurity experts claim that no money was stolen in these hacks against the gambling websites. However, hackers have stolen source codes and databases. The motive of the attack was not a cybercrime, but rather espionage intended attack to gain intelligence. According to the experts, a group named ' DRBControl ' is responsible for the cyberattack. According to the reports of Trend Micro, the hacking techniques used in this particular cyberattack incident is similar to methods done by Emissary Panda and Winnti. All of these hacking groups are from China that has launc
5 comments
Read more

Information security experts have warned Russians about bonus card fraud schemes.

Fraudsters several thousand times tried to illegally take advantage of discount bonuses of Russians in 2019. Some attackers gained access to customers' personal accounts, and then bought the products using bonuses, said Alexey Sizov, head of the anti-fraud department of the Application Security Systems Center at Jet Infosystems. According to him, a fraudster can register a personal account on a card that was issued to another person. The victim will accumulate points without knowing about the existence of his profile, and the attacker will write off bonuses, said Sizov. The expert added that this is mainly done by novice scammers. According to him, loyalty programs are poorly protected, unlike banking operations. He said that they are estimated at 50 billion rubles ($760 milliard) for the 30 largest retailers. Alexey Fedorov, Chairman of the Business Russia Trade Committee, said that in 2019, the number of bonus and discount thefts "increased significantly."
Post a Comment
Read more

Provider Volia reported to the cyber police about the intense cyberattacks on the server

Cable provider Volia appealed to the Cyber Police on the fact of fixing a DDoS attack on the Kharkov servers of the company, which has been ongoing since May 31. "For three days, from May 31 to today, the Volia infrastructure in Kharkov is subjected to cyberattacks. At first, they were carried out only on subscriber subsystems, later they switched to telecommunications infrastructure. As a result, more than 100,000 subscribers experienced problems using the Internet, IPTV, multi-screen platform, and digital TV," said the company. In total, the complete lack of access to Volia's services, according to the provider, lasted 12 minutes on May 31, 45 minutes on June 1. There was also an attack on the website volia.com, but it was managed to neutralize. "DDoS attacks were massive and well-organized. The type of attack is UDP flood and channel capacity overflow with the traffic of more than 200 GB. UDP is a protocol used for online streaming services - streaming, te
Post a Comment
Read more