SCADA: Vunerabilities, Cyber Attacks and Murder

SCADA: A Clear and Present Danger

I recently received a correspondence from an individual (who I will refer to as ‘RD’) who is convinced that the government is attempting to suppress much of the SCADA vulnerabilities by quieting whistleblowers. The information offered may be pure speculation but there is a reason why RD has taken on this personal crusade…RD sincerely believes his brother was executed because of what he knew.

I know some will say that I’m making light of a person’s rambling during a time of grief, but it has been proven that the SCADA system has serious problems that need to be addressed sooner than later. The public is entitled to know how secure they really are despite those who say that the best policy is to not cause public panic. But let’s be honest, manufactured fear ( ie: The Terrorist Warning Alert and Iraq’s WMD lies) is one thing…actual clear and present danger is another.

reply to post by Medieval1028

I'll tell you a little story... In early 1988 I found out that a certain government's SCADA based security infrastructure could be shut down and manipulated from outside of their "alleged" security perimeter. I took measures upon myself to do the right thing and develop a way to fix the problem at low cost by changing the processor system, building in encryption software, etc. Once I had my plan in place and tested on a small demo system, I went to the outside of the security perimeter armed with a jeep, a portable computer, receiver/transmitter, scanner and a home made modem and tested my hypothesis fully, I was right, I shut it down. Of course I did turn it back on again quickly, but it was perceived as a glitch.

So I wrote a "white paper" on the problem, three simple pages of problem, solution and cost that even a career criminal, er I mean Colonel could understand. He took it to my other boss and it came down to a choice, fix the security problem for $150k or get the Colonel his $100k birthday present for all those jobs he shifted our way. You gotta know what happened next right?

They tried to kill me four times. The first time on a mined road on a border, the second time on a different border while a small campaign was going on across the border (two other people died). The third time was a little more creative, I was poisoned with an experimental anesthetic during dental surgery, heart stopped, boosted back, hemorrhaged for ten days. The last time was on a commercial flight, they had to empty the hold because they found two suitcases with nitrates, ooops eh? I think the only reason I am still alive is dumb luck and I have all the "goods" and hard evidence backed up in a number of different locations, a dead man's switch of sorts that will be launched like an informational ICBM in the event of even rumors of my death;-) I know it sounds a little melodramatic, but governments and corporations are deadly serious when they see fit.

Moral of the story, "Sometimes when the job is done, so are the engineers." S+F because infrastructure is very important!

Cheers - Dave

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