Industrial Robots Potentially Flawed Security-Wise so Susceptible to Hacks

Industrial robots have a very important function. They make almost any device a person requires, from computers, phones to airplanes, cars, anything that one can name.

Robots need doing just what they are programmed to do in the factories. That is why Trend Micro a U.S. cyber security company reveals in its new report of May 3, how much industrial robots are susceptible to hackers' attacks, which causes trouble. Seemingly, it is possible to hack these robots with the probability of disaster being real.

When an industrial robot is hacked, it may not appear especially shocking, but the result can be an ABB IRB140 robot programmed for sketching one straight line gets to do something else like making the line some millimeters off whose effect can be considerable. Citing an example, suppose the entire output of a factory becomes waste products for the reason the robotic machines' programs had been clandestinely altered for producing defective items, it could mean millions lost. Even bad is that parts of cars/airplanes could get altered leading to becoming dangerous when used within real world. Forbes.com posted this online dated May 3, 2017.

Trend Micro also found that over 83K industrial robots are connected to the Internet, with 5,000 of them without any authentication requirement. Worse still researchers discovered that these robots were affected with 65 security flaws exploiting some of which would let cyber-criminals evade validation requirements so they could change core settings in the robots as well as their operation methods.

Contextually according to Trend Micro, the security company already approached industrial robots' manufacturers and told them what way they could fix the security flaws in their products.

And though the above solutions are heartening, Trend Micro observes that if it is possible to hack ABB's robots then hacking is possible of other robots too.

ABB has from the time of discovery of flaws in its robot machines fixed those flaws, nevertheless, concerns rise from Trend Micro's findings regarding automation over time. The security company advises industries create cyber-security norms for their robot machines prior to automation becoming the rule in every factory.

» SPAMfighter News - 5/8/2017