Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1337
Urgent/11 Flaws Impact More RTOS Used by Medical, Industrial Devices
IoT security firm Armis has confirmed that the recently disclosed vulnerabilities tracked as Urgent/11 affect several real time operating systems (RTOS) other than VxWorks.
Armis revealed in late July that Wind River's VxWorks operating system, which is used by millions of devices, is affected by 11 vulnerabilities, including critical flaws that can be exploited to take control of devices.
Several major industrial and automation solutions providers whose products use VxWorks have issued advisories to inform users on the impact of the Urgent/11 vulnerabilities.
When it first disclosed its findings, Armis noted that the flaws exist in the VxWorks IPnet TCP/IP stack and warned that other RTOS may be affected as well considering that Interpeak licensed this IPnet stack to other vendors before it was acquired by Wind River in 2006.
Armis now says it has identified six other RTOS that use the problematic IPnet stack, including ZebOS by IP Infusion, ITRON by TRON Forum, OSE by ENEA, Nucleus RTOS by Mentor, Integrity by Green Hills, and ThreadX by Microsoft.
Many embedded systems rely on these RTOS, including many medical and industrial devices. Armis has been able to validate the impact of the flaws on BD Alaris infusion pumps running OSE, the HP Proliant management engine based on Nucleus, Canon printers that use ThreadX, Planex routers based on ZebOS, and ArrowSpan access points that run Integrity.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 03 2019, @04:39PM (3 children)
someone explain again, WTF all this shit is accessible from the internets?
Some of us have been asking this question for 20 years and more. And, all of the explanations have FAILED to help us understand.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by RamiK on Thursday October 03 2019, @05:53PM
Planned obsoleteness: Sell a guy a fish, and he'll pay you today. Loan him an IoT fishing pole that requires constant security updates at a moderate interest, and he'll pay you for a lifetime.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 03 2019, @06:01PM
Everything needs to connect to the "cloud," because reasons.
Those reasons include data mining; "personalized" ads; external, irrevocable control over devices, etc.
Even better, such devices are rarely updated, as maintaining the existing code base and providing customer support is *way* too expensive. Customers should just buy the new and improved [ambians.com] device:
I can only assume you haven't been paying attention.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 03 2019, @08:18PM
Just because it uses TCP, doesn't mean it's connect to the Internet. It's used for communication between single-board computers, other vehicles, aircraft, ships, etc.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday October 03 2019, @06:18PM (3 children)
This problem could almost make one believe that implementing a full TCP/IP stack is very complex.
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday October 03 2019, @07:49PM (2 children)
Well, I'm surprised that implementing an IP stack for an RTOS is possible. In fact, I really doubt that it is. This is probably an interface to a rather standard IP stack that hasn't been updated in a long time, that works by saying "check back later to see if your request succeeded".
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by KilroySmith on Thursday October 03 2019, @07:59PM
>>> I'm surprised that implementing an IP stack for an RTOS is possible
Well, if you had any experience in the realm you wouldn't be surprised. Can I ask a question? If the IP stack isn't running under the RTOS, then where is the alternative "rather standard IP stack" running?
Kids these days. Sheesh.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 03 2019, @08:54PM
Um, what? ALL RTOS support TCP/IP. Not everything running in a RTOS has hard deadlines.