As Congress Debates Critical Infrastructure Security, Danger Grows

Security experts warn that new tools make it easier than ever to attack critical infrastructure control systems, as Congress debates legislative action.

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How long might it take to properly secure the systems that comprise the critical infrastructure? Try 25 years, give or take half a decade.
As debate in the Senate intensifies over whether businesses should be required to secure critical infrastructure systems, security experts at the RSA conference in San Francisco last week warned that whatever decisions get made now, the related security issues could persist for decades.
The replacement cycle in critical infrastructure is 20 to 30 years. So, right now, most of the U.S. critical infrastructure is running on software developed 25 years ago, said Roel Schouwenberg, senior researcher at Kaspersky Lab, speaking at RSA.
With that timeline in mind, should the government require private businesses in
critical infrastructure sectors
to begin implementing better information security practices, including improved control system security? Thats one question being debated now in Congress.
Two Senate bills have proposed different approaches to the problem. The Cybersecurity Act of 2012, introduced last month by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), together with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), would give the Department of Homeland Security the ability to regulate the information security practices of businesses involved in the critical sector. It would also require them to share participate in threat intelligence information sharing with the government.
[ Can the government help businesses with security in other ways? Read
Should NSA Be Scanning Business Networks?
]
Some Republican senators, however, have
criticized the Lieberman-Collins bill
, saying it would add to businesses regulatory burden, and possibly duplicate
existing Department of Defense security initiatives
. As a more hands-off alternative, eight high-ranking Republican senators Thursday introduced a bill theyve dubbed Secure IT.
The centerpiece of this legislation is a framework for voluntary information sharing, said John McCain (R-Ariz.), the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, at a news conference to announce the bill. Known in longhand as the Strengthening and Enhancing Cybersecurity by Using Research, Education, Information and Technology Act, the bills backers also include GOP Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Dan Coats (R-Ind.).
Similarly, a group of House Republicans has introduced a bill that focuses on information sharing. Regulation is not favored by our caucus in the House, we would prefer that the private sector do what they can to protect their own investments, said Kevin Gronberg, senior counsel to the Committee on Homeland Security in the U.S. House of Representatives, speaking at RSA. But that being said, we need to make sure that the private sector has the appropriate information it needs to protect their investment, to protect their networks, which they know better than anyone else.
Sen. Hutchison, whos the ranking member of the Senate committee on commerce, science, and transportation, has said the GOP senators hope to synchronize their proposed bill with the Lieberman-Collins bill.
Some security experts, however, have questioned whether information sharing alone will resolve current critical infrastructure security shortcomings. After Stuxnet, I got quite involved with the U.S. critical infrastructure, and whats very clear to me is that unless things are mandated by D.C., nothing is changing, said Kaspersky Labs Schouwenberg. These companies are being run for the bottom line, and theres simply no budget for anything thats not being mandated by D.C.
In the meantime, growing interest in control system vulnerabilities by the security research community has been lowering the bar for any would-be control system attacker. Last month, for example, a number of recent vulnerabilities were added to
Metasploit
, a free toolkit that can be used to penetration test--or simply attack--systems that contain known vulnerabilities. Thats allowing people who are not necessarily very knowledgeable about these systems to go out and affect them, said control system security expert Joe Weiss, who heads Applied Control Solutions, via phone. Because some of the vendors havent fixed any of this yet.
While vendors may not be rapidly fixing vulnerabilities in their
industrial control system software
, even when such patches do get released, many businesses also dont rush to install them.
Furthermore, would-be attackers can easily locate Internet-connected control systems--many of which were never designed to be connected to the Internet, and which lack appropriate safeguards--using a
search tool such as Shodan
. Many of the people that operate these devices probably dont even realize that theyre Internet-facing, so thats a concern, said Jenny Menna, director of critical infrastructure cyber protection and awareness for the National Cyber Security Division of the Department of Homeland Security.
Secure Sockets Layer isnt perfect, but there are ways to optimize it. The new
Web Encryption That Works
supplement from Dark Reading shows four places to start. (Free registration required.)

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As Congress Debates Critical Infrastructure Security, Danger Grows