• Flori@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    8 months ago

    Misleading title: SIEMENS Mobility is looking for said Windows 3.11 admin. NOT the German Railway

  • voodooattack@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Legacy hardware and operating systems are battle tested, having been extensively probed and patched during their heyday. The same can be said for software written for these platforms – they have been refined to the point that they can execute their intended tasks without incident. If it is ain’t broke, don’t fix it. One could also argue that dated platforms are less likely to be targeted by modern cybercriminals. Learning the ins and outs of a legacy system does not make sense when there are so few targets still using them. A hacker would be far better off to master something newer that millions of systems still use.

    Tell me you know nothing about cybersecurity without telling me you know nothing about cybersecurity. Wtf is this drivel?

      • voodooattack@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        And said trick ends when an attacker manages to socially-engineer their way in. (But maybe they’ll drop floppies instead of flash drives around the block this time)

        • yesman@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          You really think that infrastructure IT is dumb unless it can brush off a Stuxnet-like attack by the CIA and Mosad? Most RR traffic signals in the US are run with mechanical logic, physical switches connected to circuits closed by steel wheels on steel tracks. Do you really want a “move fast and break things” tech bro to update all this stuff for us?

          All kinds of infrastructure uses ancient software because it’s reliable. Updating it just to protect from hackers causing damage is likely to cause that damage unintentionally while doing little to protect from hackers anyhow.

          • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            It must be updated sometime or risk being archaic and unmanageable. Chances are high they are paying insane amounts for those legacy mechanical switches you mention.

            The actual logic is usually very well portable to a more modern ecosystem.

            • nilloc
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              8 months ago

              Or these companies could pay to train (no pun intended) technicians to learn the systems they’d like to maintain. No matter how old they are.

              Until entropy comes for the actual hardware (assuming they won’t invest in remanufacture or production of replacements). Re-engineering a successfully working system is more costly and might result in worse outcomes, especially in the near term.

              • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                Often these system rely on old components which are just not made anymore.

                People don’t design every switch, computer and chip themselves. They buy whatever mainstream stuff is available at the time and combine it into a system

                If you want to resupply those old parts you literally need to search Ebay to buy some weird outdated 2nd hand MSDOS PC to put in your “awesome reliable railway system”.

                Upgrading at every new whim is of course bad, but once your system reaches legacy age it’s often necessary to fully overhaul and modernize it for the next ~15-20 years.

          • mlg@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Every SCADA related cyber attack and incident has entered the chat.

            Even if it’s archaic, a lot of these systems aren’t secure which can be done relatively easily and cheaply with things like basic firewalls and stunnel.

          • AMDIsOurLord@lemmy.ml
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            8 months ago

            Akshually it was recently found that a spy from Holland I think penetrated a chip supply line and installed an infected chip which found it’s way into the centrifuge network

          • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            uses ancient software because it’s reliable

            HAHAHA!

            I just have to laugh at that idea, since I’ve been using computers since the days that those OSes were in common use. Reliable is not what I would call a lot of that old stuff for sure.

            The bottom line is that ancient software will likely have ancient security vulnerabilities that would be trivial to exploit and take over or destroy those systems. It’s not good.

        • arc@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          They could socially engineer their way in regardless of some machine being MSDOS or not. Basically if they can gain physical access to the device, or convince somebody to do something with the device it hardly matters what it was running since it can still be compromised.

        • Syndic@feddit.de
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          8 months ago

          Sure, but how likely is this in this specific scenario. We’re talking about a system that’s not even directly controlling the train but just a display on it. The worst that can happen is that those displays won’t work until the system is reinstalled. That’s hardly a lucrative target for modern hackers. There’s way easier target which are worth something.

          • voodooattack@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            I’m not talking about this specific instance, just that block of misinformation/generalisation. Saying that legacy systems are well-secured because they’re “battle tested” is sheer ignorance.

            Take side-channel attacks for example. A timing attack is something programmers from the 60’s and 70’s would not have taken into account when writing their hashing algorithms. And speaking of hashing, what hashing algorithms were available back then? CRC32 or something similar? What about salting? You get the idea.

            Not to mention that legacy operating systems don’t get security updates. Let’s assume that DOS is secure (which it definitely isn’t), but if that statement were correct, would it apply to Windows XP as well?

            All I’m saying is that the article is dead wrong. As software developers in this century, we’ve come a long way. We’ve developed security best practices, written libraries and frameworks, and come up with mitigations for a lot of these security vulnerabilities. These solutions are something that closed-source legacy systems (and anything without active maintenance) would never benefit from.

    • arc@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      It really depends if these systems (that appear to control arrival boards) are on a network or not. If they’re not, then there is minimal risk to leave them the way they are. Somebody would need physical access to the devices to do harm. If they are on a network then that’s a pretty big deal, but some attacks could be mitigated against by tunnelling and/or additional packet filtering to ensure the integrity of messages.

      Continuing on a railway theme you should be FAR more worried all the devices that run up and down the side of railway lines - PLCs that talk with each other and operations centres to control things like lights, junctions, crossings etc. If they’re more than 5 years old then chances are then all that traffic is in the clear, and because these things live in boxes by the railway line, it wouldn’t take much to break into a network and potentially kill people by running two trains into each other.

        • arc@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          The job might be remote, doesn’t mean the system is remote. For all you or I know they want somebody to reverse engineer the protocol of this thing, which could be some weird board & driver that hooks into an old PC so they can switch it out for something else.

          • bane_killgrind@lemmy.ml
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            8 months ago

            It’s in the job description, remote access is available via a repurposed laparoscope robot and webcam placed in front of the original terminal keyboard and CRT