In this presentation we are going to explain and demonstrate step by step in a real attack scenario how a remote attacker could elevate privileges in order to take control remotely in a production seismological network located at 183mts under the sea. We found several seismographs in production connected to the public internet providing graphs and data to anyone who connects to the embed web server running at port 80. The seismographs provide real time data based in the perturbations from earth and surroundings, we consider this as a critical infrastructure and is clear the lack of protection and implementation by the technicians in charge.
We are going to present 3 ways to exploit the seismograph which is segmented in 3 parts: Modem (GSM, Wi-Fi, Satellite, GPS,Com serial) {web server running at port 80 , ssh daemon} Sensor (Device collecting the data from ground or ocean bottom) Battery (1 year lifetime) Apollo server (MAIN acquisition core server) These vulnerabilities affect the Modem which is directly connected to the sensor , a remote connection to the modem it's all that you need to compromise the whole seismograph network. After got the root shell our goal is execute a post exploitation attack , This specific attack corrupts/modifies the whole seismological research data of a country/ area in real time. We are going to propose recommendations and best practices based on how to deploy a seismological network in order to avoid this nasty attacks.