Hackers are Attacking US Gas Pumps

When I worked for Paul Keeshin, at Keeshin Charter Service, between 1985 and 1997, I

Keeshin Charter Service - [1980 -1997]

had the opportunity to work on the "Red Jacket" series of pump controllers and tank monitoring equipment.

The Red Jacket software enabled us to tightly control the amount of fuel that went into our motor coaches and service trucks, preventing theft by drivers who also owned diesel powered trucks. It also tied back into the Versys Charter trip scheduling software, and, based on the

Red Jacket Fueling Systems

the engine operating hours and mileage driven, all entered by the driver or fueler, at the pump, and allocated to the vehicle being fueled at the time of fueling, kept track of vehicle maintenance intervals.

As early as 1989, our computer systems, at all four of our locations, were interconnected.

Versys Charter Management Software

Our main servers were located at 615 W 41st in Chicago, and our O'Hare and McCormick Place offices had access to all of the charter, service work, fuel consumption, maintenance scheduling, maintenance statistics, parts inventory, and lots of other information. During the early 90s, I also made access available via telephone dial-up, and, eventually, the Internet: a feature which allowed incredible growth and gave Keeshin Charter Service a unique edge in our industry at the time.

As part of the software interface, I worked diligently to ensure strong passwords were used: both at an Administrative and user level. I took a bit of heat, from both my co-workers, from the software vendor, and from other users of the software over the fact that I voiced my concerns about security and "back doors". They balked at my insistence on higher than, what were then considered, normal security measures, but we never had an incidence of hacking or inappropriate information access.

Anonymous Takes Credit for Hacking Gas Pumps

Now, because of the fact that so much tech support is being centralized, remotely accessible software security has fallen by the wayside.

Standardized, and default passwords, which make it easier for support personnel to remotely access fueling systems, to troubleshoot or update the software, also allow software allow hackers easy access.

Many of the fueling software systems are easy to get into, because they're still protected by "default" passwords. In other cases, a "standard" password has been established so that any one of up to several hundred techs can remote access software.

Hackers Can Attack US Gas Pumps

Here's a fact, and, yes, it's meant to scare you:

Gas monitoring systems or automated tank gauges (ATG) keep an eye on fuel levels, volume and temperature, among other stats.

When not properly secured, and left unprotected, fuel system software can be manipulated to do something extremely destructive -- like blow up a gas station.

Trend Micro learned about this security breech and decided to do some investigating, and this is what they found out:  "After a gas station monitoring system was hacked earlier this year, Trend Micro researchers Kyle Wilhoit and Stephen Hilt decided to take a closer look. They set up fake internet-connected systems called "GasPots" -- honeypots that mimic the real ones -- in several countries to track hackers' movements.  Turns out gas monitors are never safe: the researchers observed a number of attacks on their GasPots within a period of six months, with US-based ones being the most targeted."

Hilt and Wilhoit discovered more than 1,515 vulnerable gas pump monitoring devices worldwide, less than a third of the figure logged by HD Moore last month.  That would be reason for cautious optimism – except that the duo also uncovered evidence of tampered Guardian AST devices.  The US-located system, left wide open on the net, had been hacked, apparently by mischief-makers, referencing one of ragtag hacker group Anonymous’s favorite catch phrases.

"An attacker had modified one of these pump-monitoring systems in the US. This pump system was found to be internet facing with no implemented security measures.  The pump name was changed from “DIESEL” to 'WE_ARE_LEGION.'  The group Anonymous often uses the slogan 'We Are Legion,' which might shed light on possible attributions of this attack.  But given the nebulous nature of Anonymous, we can’t necessarily attribute this directly to the group. 

An outage of these pump monitoring systems, while not catastrophic, could cause serious data loss and supply chain problems.  For instance, should a volume value be misrepresented as low, a gasoline truck could be dispatched to investigate low tank values.  Empty tank values could also be shown full, resulting in gas stations having no fuel."

The insecure gas pump monitoring system issue is part of the wider problem of insecure SCADA (industrial control) devices.

Start a Ticket

SmarterTech from ChicagoNetTech

Just in case that didn't sink in, let me repeat that: In the case of gasoline monitoring and control software, these default, and standardized passwords potentially allow terrorists to use local gas stations as IEDs (incendiary explosive devices) by overtaking, and overriding, the controls embedded into the same software that allows us to pay for our gasoline at the pump, using our credit cards.

Whether you require assistance securing your fuel dispensing systems, patient data, financial data, or your computer network, give me a call (773-365-0105), or open a ticket at https://portal.chicagonettech.com/Main/frmNewTicket.aspx (registration required).

With more than 35 years of experience, we'll help vet any hidden issues and secure your data - before it becomes an explosive situation.

Copyright © ChicagoNetTech Inc, 2015. All rights reserved.

SRS Header Rewrites Broken in Many E-Mail Servers - Causing "550" Errors

While the content of this message is specifically applicable to the SmarterTools, SmarterMail e-mail server product, it is of extreme importance to everyone who uses or hosts their own e-mail.

It turns out that, since sometime around SmarterMail version 10.X or 11.X, the ability of SmarterMail to properly do something called SENDER HEADER REWRITE has not been functioning properly and this is causing 550 NON DELIVERABLE ERRORS on e-mail which is FORWARDED from someone's SmarterMail account.

 

For those of us who are involved, on a day-to-day basis with e-mail services, and troubleshooting those services, this has been a thorn in our sides since OUTLOOK.COM, YAHOO!, GMAIL, COMCAST, and many other e-mail providers, ChicagoNetTech included, have enforced DMARC and other antispam protocols in an effort to keep our user's in boxes as fee of spam as possible.


 

For those who have been sending e-mail and seeing 550 X.X.X errors which specify that their e-mail was not delivered because of an SMTP AUTHENTICATION ERROR, along with the techs who have been attempting to troubleshoot these non-delivery issues, this has been an absolute nightmare, to all of whom who have so suffered, I sincerely apologize.

Some background:



 

In our efforts to prevent spam from being forwarded via an unauthorized source, many ISPs are now performing hard checks SMTP + SPF | Protected by SPFon all incoming messages to ensure that the SPF included in the message header actually matches the SPF information for the domain which is forwarding the message.


 

When someone has their e-mail setup to FORWARD to another account, unless SRS has been enabled by the relaying MX server, the SPF no longer matches the original sender's MX to SPF mappings and the messages are now frequently rejected by the receiving MX server.  This is now being enforced by Gmail, YAHOO! and COMCAST, as well as ChicagoNetTech, as we look for additional ways to prevent spammers from "gaming the system" and they continue to find new ways to work-around and circumvent the latest spam prevention techniques.

While this is almost always an inconvenient incumbrance to the party who's forwarded e-mail is rejected, after being forwarded, most modern MX servers have a way to insert updated header information into the message, leaving the original headers intact, and adding routing information to the message header so those MX servers receiving forwarded messages will not reject the forwarded message.

In SmarterMail, this is easily enabled by the primary MX server administrator by ENABLING SRS to REWRITE the MESSAGE HEADER as it passes through the SmarterMail MX server.

 

Is There Anything Else to the Equation?

In February, 2013, a new player was introduced to the antispam field.  Called DMARC, this tool is designed to allow e-mail server operators to tell those e-mail servers who respect the DMARC protocol what to do with messages which originate from sources other than authorized e-mail servers.  The immediate effect of the DMARC protocol was that it almost completely eliminated job-jobbing, a form of e-mail spoofing which usually caused major headaches for the sender who's e-mail address had been hijacked as the "reply to" address on bogus e-mail messages.

DMARC checks for valid:

 

      DomainKeys: a private certificate, generated specifically for a domain, and mapped to the domain both in the messages header and in the domain's DNS, which validates the ability of that domain to originate an e-mail message;

      DKIM Records: digital signing of specific fields of a message, tied to the DomainKey of the domain from which the message was sent;

      SPF Records: Sender Policy Framework records were one of the original tools adopted to ensure the authenticity of messages and a very early form of authentication which tied IP addresses and domains together;

      rDNS or IN-ARPA Records: a reverse address mapping of the IP Address from which the message was sent to the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of the e-mail server with the authority to originate a message on behalf of a domain. 

 

 

 

Because DMARC is a flexible protocol, designed to allow e-mail server operators the capability to gradually "turn up the heat" on spam messages received at receiving e-mail servers, an issue with message forwarding was not readily apparent, until about a year ago, when GMAIL turned up the head and started to completely restrict messages which did not absolutely meet the DMARC protocol.

So, How is SRS Rewrite Supposed to Work? 

With that in mind, let's go back and look at how SRS Header Rewrites are supposed to work.

In traditional, or verbatim, forwarding, the return-path is preserved in the outgoing message.  Here's a graphic to help illustrate the issue:

Forward WITHOUT SRS Forwarding: Header Rewrite - will fail

and here's a graphic with the SRS rewrite added - allowing the message to pass SPF when received at the new mailbox 

Forward WITH SRS Forwarding: Header Rewrite - will PASS

In an SPF world, forwarders need to rewrite the return-path to stay in good standing.  

The SRS library implementations help perform the needed transformation and ensure proper delivery.  Full-time forwarding services may prefer to integrate this logic directly into their MTAs.  Smaller sites don't have to: they can just call the srs utility which does all the work.

Once you have enabled SRS, additional header information will be written into the header of the original message, allowing it to meet the SPF compliance for the SmarterMail server which is forwarding, or RE-SENDING the message to the party's off-site e-mail address, without the receiving MX server rejecting the message for an SPF error. 

When the full force of DMARC is applied, and an SPF error occurs because of a failed SRS header rewrite scenario, we end up with what is referred to as a 550 ERROR

But wait, the 550 ERROR message says that the message was rejected because the sender did not use SMTP AUTHENTICATION, and that's something that's commonly checked as part of the antispam measures, to prevent spam from reaching all of our in boxes, right?

Yes, but the 550 ERROR is also the error which is returned with there is a MISMATCH on the SENDING E-MAIL ADDRESS DOMAIN because it is not included in the SPF RECORD!

 

Pictures are Sometimes Very Helpful!

Here's a picture which might help you understand the issue better:

 

Point of information:  an MTA is another way to reference an e-mail server.

So, the ORIGINAL MTA sends the message to the RECEIVING MTA. 

The receiving MTA then validates all of the informaiton in the message header against a REMOTE MTA, generally a DNS SERVER, which contains information on what server is responsible for what kinds of services for a specific domain name and its services, and then reports back to the REPORTING MTA whether the information contained in the message headers is GOOD or BAD.

When the SRS header is not properly rewriteen, the REMOTE MTA reports back to the REPORTING MTA as BAD DATA and the REPORTING MTA rejects the message, via the RECIVING MTA with a 550 ERROR.

 

 

 

 

 

The receiving e-mail server is rejecting a legitimately forwarded e-mail message because it thinks it is from a spammer, IE: the SENDING DOMAIN is not authorized, under SPF, to send on behalf of the domain which actually sent the message

It turns out the 550 ERRORS are NOT a spam issue, but a FORWARDING ISSUE -- a FORWARDING ISSUE which is caused by the fact that SRS HEADER REWRITES were not properly written into the message header (a part of every e-mail message which tells the receiving e-mail server where it came from, who sent it, how the recipient should reply, etc, and also contains important routing and antispam information.

 

Summary:

The messages are being rejected because SmarterMail, along with many other MX servers, is not properly doing a SRS FORWARD HEADER REWRITE and the messages appear to be SPAM which was sent through an OPEN RELAY.

I've opened a ticket with our SmarterMail vendor, SmarterTools.  You can read the ticket, comments, and progress, at: https://portal.smartertools.com/community/a2676/srs-header-rewrite-not-working-properly-on-message-forwarding-_-_-_.aspx

You can also see my original KB (Knowledge Base) article on SRS Forwarding at: https://portal.chicagonettech.com/kb/a177/enable-srs-to-prevent-spf-fail-on-forwarded-e-mail-messages.aspx

While this particular instance relates to a software problem with a specific product, SmarterMail, this is not an uncommon situation with e-mail servers, which are also known as MX servers and MTAs.

If you have experienced issues with 550 errors and e-mail rejection, you may want to forward this e-mail to your IT Department or e-mail support group so they can look into whether their e-mail server product is properly inserting SRS Header Rewrites into e-mail message headers.

Remember, ChicagoNetTech provides secure e-mail and web hosting services and will be glad to help you make your online experience better.

Bruce Barnes ஃ

ChicagoNetTech Inc

SmarterTools Product Specialist
E-Mail and DNS Security Specialist
Network Security Specialist

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"Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est" "Knowledge is power" - Francis Bacon (1561—1626)

"Only the paranoid survive." - Intel Founder - Andy Grove (1936 - )