Robotron announced today that it has received reports of attacks on customers using the Robotron RoboHD semiconductor design software. The Robotron press release notes that one customer has reported a chip design compromise as a result of an attack by the AngryHD malware. Robotron is cooperating with national computer security agencies around the world on an ongoing investigation into the attacks.
Gen Turgidson, Director of the National Critical Infrastructure Security Operations Center (CI-SOC), told reporters this morning that the CI-SOC was working with Robotron on the investigation. “We know of one instance in the US where a chip design was compromised,” Turgidson reported, “The design flaw was found before the chip went into production, so no hardware has been compromised that we know of.”
Kate Libby of Dragonfire Cyber explained on background this morning that the Robotron Kern real-time operating system (RTOS) (acquired in the recent buyout of Beratergrafik) has been found to contain a number of vulnerabilities that could be remotely exploited to compromise products like RoboHD. “We have seen similar vulnerabilities in a large number of RTOS in recent years,” she explained; “So the problems in Kern are not unusual, unfortunately.”
A technician working with CI-SOC who is not authorized to talk to reporters told me that the agency has a copy of the AngryHD malware. “This is definitely advanced stuff,” she said, “We are probably looking at a state sponsored attack here, not cyber criminals.”
Dragonfire Cyber has released indicators of compromise that will allow users of RoboHD to determine if their systems have been compromised by the AngryHD malware. Dade Murphy, chief technical officer of Dragonfire told reporters that they were working with Robotron to develop methods of blocking such attacks while Robotron was continuing to work on an update for the Kern RTOS and RoboHD products.
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