Vessel-tracking system vulnerable to denial-of-service, other attacks, researchers say

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://news.techworld.com/security/3522313/vessel-tracking-system-vulnerable-to-denial-of-service-other-attacks-researchers-say/

By Lucian Constantin
Techworld.com
29 May 2014

Inexpensive equipment can be used to disrupt vessel-tracking systems and 
important communications between ships and port authorities, according to 
two security researchers.

During the Hack in the Box conference in Amsterdam Thursday, Marco 
Balduzzi, a senior research scientist at Trend Micro, and independent 
security researcher Alessandro Pasta described three new attacks against 
the Automatic Identification System (AIS), which is used by over 400,000 
ships worldwide.

AIS supplements information from marine radar systems and sends a ships's 
identity, type, position, course, speed, navigational status and 
safety-related information to other ships, shore stations and aircraft. 
Port and coastal authorities also use the system to send important traffic 
information and other data back to the ships.

Balduzzi and Pasta warned last year that the lack of authentication and 
integrity-checking in the AIS communication protocol could allow pirates, 
terrorists or other attackers to create ghost vessels or spoof information 
received by the ships.

[...]



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