INCIBE-CERT

A high percentage of devices developed for the industrial world have physical interfaces that allow secondary communications to be established. These communications allow the execution of important tasks such as the management of the devices themselves or changing the way they interact with industrial processes. Although in most cases it is necessary to have physical access to the device in order to use these interfaces, manipulation of the device through these interfaces allows attackers to manipulate the operation of the system without leaving any trace if there are no mechanisms to protect the asset from hardware hacking.This article aims to show the most widespread physical interfaces in industrial devices and embedded systems in general. On the other hand, we want to show some attacks executed throughout history in the industrial world. These attacks, thanks to the physical manipulation of a device, have allowed attackers to achieve a great impact on the targeted industrial process

LockerGoga is  a ransomware-type malware, first discovered in 2019, that infects computer systems, encrypts your files, and demands a ransom in cryptocurrencies in order to recover them. Unlike others, LockerGoga focuses on attacking businesses and government organizations. This article describes what it is and explains the relevant methods to respond to this threat

The physical protection of ports at hardware level within embedded systems allows control of the physical access interfaces, but what happens when these interfaces are necessary? Sometimes, access via JTAG or UART to systems is required for maintenance or modifications in different industrial processes. Thanks to these accesses, suppliers can access memory addresses to read or write, modify firmware, etc. Given the importance of these tasks, it is necessary to incorporate cybersecurity into the process and it is precisely on these measures that the subject of this article will focus.Protection against fault injections, encryption of some memory sections within microcontrollers, or simple write protection are some of the defences that can be implemented to avoid problems within an industrial infrastructure