cyberstrikeus T0813 Denial of Control
High-Level Description
Adversaries may cause a denial of control to temporarily prevent operators and engineers from interacting with process controls. An adversary may attempt to deny process control access to cause a temporary loss of communication with the control device or to prevent operator adjustment of process controls. An affected process may still be operating during the period of control loss, but not necessarily in a desired state.
In the 2017 Dallas Siren incident operators were unable to disable the false alarms from the Office of Emergency Management headquarters.
Kill Chain Phase
- Impact (TA0105)
Platforms: ICS
What to Check
- Identify if Denial of Control technique is applicable to target ICS environment
- Check ICS/SCADA systems for indicators of Denial of Control
- Verify mitigations are bypassed or absent (3 known mitigations)
- Assess detection coverage (1 detection strategies)
How to Test
Identify Attack Surface
Determine if the target ICS/SCADA environment is susceptible to Denial of Control by examining operational technology systems and network architecture.
Assess Existing Defenses
Review whether mitigations for T0813 are in place. If defenses are absent or misconfigured, this technique may be exploitable in the ICS environment.
Remediation Guide
M0810 Out-of-Band Communications Channel
Provide operators with redundant, out-of-band communication to support monitoring and control of the operational processes, especially when recovering from a network outage . Out-of-band communication should utilize diverse systems and technologies to minimize common failure modes and vulnerabilities within the communications infrastructure. For example, wireless networks (e.g., 3G, 4G) can be used to provide diverse and redundant delivery of data.
M0953 Data Backup
Take and store data backups from end user systems and critical servers. Ensure backup and storage systems are hardened and kept separate from the corporate network to prevent compromise. Maintain and exercise incident response plans , including the management of gold-copy back-up images and configurations for key systems to enable quick recovery and response from adversarial activities that impact control, view, or availability.
M0811 Redundancy of Service
Hot-standbys in diverse locations can ensure continued operations if the primarily system are compromised or unavailable. At the network layer, protocols such as the Parallel Redundancy Protocol can be used to simultaneously use redundant and diverse communication over a local network.
Detection
Detection of Denial of Control
Risk Assessment
| Finding | Severity | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Denial of Control technique applicable | High | Impact |
CWE Categories
| CWE ID | Title |
|---|---|
| CWE-400 | Uncontrolled Resource Consumption |