Identifying vulnerabilities in scada systems via fuzz-testing

Abstract

Security vulnerabilities typically arise from bugs in input validation and in the application logic. Fuzz-testing is a popular security evaluation technique in which hostile inputs are crafted and passed to the target software in order to reveal bugs. However, in the case of SCADA systems, the use of proprietary protocols makes it difficult to apply existing fuzz-testing techniques as they work best when the protocol semantics are known, targets can be instrumented and large network traces are available. This paper describes a fuzz-testing solution involving LZ-Fuzz, an inline tool that provides a domain expert with the ability to effectively fuzz SCADA devices.