Won't ARUME’s efforts cause attacks by educating hackers?
While some may have concerns, our approach is carefully designed to reduce rather than enable risk. Serious potential adversaries are already well aware of ATG vulnerabilities, and most likely already have attack weapons, and have infiltrated the servers that are responsible for polling the majority of Internet connected tank gauges. Our goal is to increase awareness of the business risks to the tank gauge monitoring companies, the fuel suppliers and the station operators/owners, and the risks to the US Critical Infrastruction through education, and suggesting safe alternatives for remote tank gauge access. ARUME takes steps to avoid enabling attacks, such as omitting
sensitive details such as IP addresses and port numbers from our vulnerability scanning reports and not releasing technical details of new vulnerabilities such as RunOut™. Ultimately, the only way to increase tank gauge security is through promoting awareness and openness, and providing stakeholders with choices of secure cost effective solutions.
Why focus on ATGs first, not broader industrial control systems (ICS)?
It's true that ICS in general deserve attention. However, after extensive research, we found Automatic Tank Gauges present a unique and urgent risk due to their easily exploited vulnerabilities and the
high-impact consequences of attacks. Unlike ICS implementations, ATGs all utilize standard communications protocols and configurations, requiring little technical expertise to attack on a large scale. An attack could
simultaneously disrupt fuel supply across tens of thousands of fueling locations in The United States with devastating economic effects. By prioritizing tank gauges, ARUME aims to close a major area of vulnerability and bring attention to the dangers of TCP/IP polling that endangers other Critical Infrastructure sectors. Our goal is to protect national critical systems, through a focused, cooperative
approach.