IFFSET: In-Field Fuzzing of Industrial Control Systems using System Emulation
Dimitrios Tychalas1 and Michail Maniatakos2
1Electrical and Computer Engineering NYU Tandon School of Engineering Brooklyn, NY, USA
dimitris.tychalas@nyu.edu
2Electrical and Computer Engineering New York University Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi, UAE
michail.maniatakos@nyu.edu
ABSTRACT
Industrial Control Systems (ICS) have evolved in the last decade, shifting from proprietary software/hardware to contemporary embedded architectures paired with opensource operating systems. In contrast to the IT world, where continuous updates and patches are expected, decommissioning always-on ICS for security assessment can incur prohibitive costs to their owner. Thus, a solution for routinely assessing the cybersecurity posture of diverse ICS without affecting their operation is essential. Therefore, in this paper we introduce IFFSET, a platform that leverages full system emulation of Linuxbased ICS firmware and utilizes fuzzing for security evaluation. Our platform extracts the file system and kernel information from a live ICS device, building an image which is emulated on a desktop system through QEMU. We employ fuzzing as a security assessment tool to analyze ICS specific libraries and find potential security threatening conditions. We test our platform with commercial PLCs, showcasing potential threats with no interruption to the control process.
Keywords: Industrial Control, Emulation, Fuzzing
