Vulnerable terminal servers could let bad guys hack stoplights, gas pumps

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9238665/Vulnerable_terminal_servers_could_let_bad_guys_hack_stoplights_gas_pumps

By Jaikumar Vijayan
Computerworld
April 24, 2013

Thousands of older systems, including those used to manage critical 
industrial control equipment, traffic lights, fuel pumps, retail 
point-of-sale terminals and building automation are vulnerable to 
tampering because they're insecurely connected to the Internet via 
terminal servers.

A terminal server, or a network access server, basically provides an 
easy way to connect any equipment that has a serial port to the 
Internet.

In a recent study, security firm Rapid7 found more than 114,000 terminal 
servers on the Internet configured in a way that could allow anyone to 
gain access to the underlying systems. Most of the systems were from 
Digi International and Lantronix, two leading manufactures of terminal 
server devices.

About 95,000 of those servers connected to the Internet via cellular 
mobile connections and 3G network cards, making them hard to protect, 
monitor and secure, according to H.D. Moore, the chief research officer 
at Rapid7 and the author of the study.

[...]


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