The Layer 3 Vulnerability – Internet of Things

Provided by OWASP

Threat Agents

Attack Vectors

Security Weakness

Technical Impacts

Business Impacts

Application Specific

Exploitability
AVERAGE

Prevalence
UNCOMMON

Detectability
AVERAGE

Impact
MODERATE

Application / Business Specific

Consider anyone who has access to the device via a network connection, including external and internal users.

Attacker uses vulnerable network services to attack the device itself or bounce attacks off the device. Attack could come from external or internal users.

Insecure network services may be susceptible to buffer overflow attacks or attacks that create a denial of service condition leaving the device inaccessible to the user. Denial of service attacks against other users may also be facilitated when insecure network services are available. Insecure network services can often be detected by automated tools such as port scanners and fuzzers.

Insecure network services can result in data loss or corruption, denial of service or facilitation of attacks on other devices.

Consider the business impact of devices which have been rendered useless from a denial of service attack or the device is used to facilitate attacks against other devices and networks. Could your customers or other users be harmed?

Are My Network Services Secure?

Checking for Insecure Network Services includes:

Determining if insecure network services exist by reviewing your device for open ports using a port scanner
As open ports are identified, each can be tested using any number of automated tools that look for DoS vulnerabilities, vulnerabilities related to UDP services and vulnerabilities related to buffer overflow and fuzzing attacks
Reviewing network ports to ensure they are absolutely necessary and if there are any ports being exposed to the internet using UPnP.

How Do I Secure My Network Services?

Securing network services requires:

Ensuring only necessary ports are exposed and available.
Ensuring services are not vulnerable to buffer overflow and fuzzing attacks.
Ensuring services are not vulnerable to DoS attacks which can affect the device itself or other devices and/or users on the local network or other networks.
Ensuring network ports or services are not exposed to the internet via UPnP for example

Please review the following OWASP tabs for more detail based on whether you are a Manufacturer, Developer or Consumer

Example Attack Scenarios

Scenario #1: Fuzzing attack causes network service and device to crash.

GET %s%s%s%s%s%s%s%s%s%s%s%s%s%s%s HTTP/1.0

Scenario #2: Ports open to the internet possibly without the user’s knowledge via UPnP.

Port 80 and 443 exposed to the internet via a consumer router.

In the cases above, the attacker is able to disable the device completely with an HTTP GET or access the device via the internet over port 80 and/or port 443.

References

OWASP