Data Info

According to analytical agencies, Cisco Systems is a manufacturer of the most popular switching and routing equipment for medium-sized and large-scale enterprises (about 64% of the global market). HP Networking holds the second place (approximately 9%). Then follow Alcatel-Lucent (3%), Juniper Networks and Brocade (each 2.3%), Huawei (1.8%) and other manufacturers less outstanding in comparison with the giants but still holding together almost 17.6% of the market.

There is a specific situation in Russia. Besides the products of the abovementioned manufacturers, Nortel and Allied Telesis switches are widely spread in this country. Moreover, devices of such manufacturers as D-Link and NetGear offering equipment to small and medium-sized enterprises are quite frequent. Brocade is still a rare bird in the territory of Russia.

Finally, we can say that equipment of the following manufacturers is the most frequent in server racks and wiring closets of Russian companies: Cisco, HP (including 3Com), Juniper, Avaya (including Nortel), Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, Allied Telesis, D-Link, NetGear.

The point at issue is to which degree those devices, on which networks are built, are safe. How seriously do manufacturers treat their product safety? We won’t follow a ‘security class’ assigned by an inspection body to each specific gadget. Let’s try to evaluate manufacturers in accordance with the number of well-known vulnerabilities, wherefore the following diagram will be used.

* According to Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Networks Tracker
** Accroding to cve.mitre.org

Author: Dmitry Kurbatov, Positive Research 

During a security analysis, Positive Technologies specialists detected a critical security error in the Emerson DeltaV distributed control system. While having access to the system, an intruder is able to read and replace its configuration files, and to run commands with any users rights. The vulnerability affects DeltaV versions 10.3.1, 11.3 and 12.3. Emerson’s DeltaV is a general purpose process control system that is used worldwide primarily in the oil and gas and chemical industries.

More information about the security error can be found in the CERT bulletin ICSA-14-133-02. The Positive Technologies experts Kirill Nesterov, Alexander Tlyapov, Dmitry Nagibin, Alexey Osipov and Timur Yunusov discovered the vulnerability.

Emerson issued a patch that mitigates errors and a notice, where information about the vulnerability and recommendations on removal of possible exploitation consequences can be found.

In addition, ICS-CERT specialists recommend Emerson DeltaV users to limit access to their networks from outside, protect the networks with firewalls and use secure protocols (for example, VPN) when set up a remote access.

Emerson is a global manufacturing and technology company offering multiple products and services in the industrial, commercial, and consumer markets through its network power, process management, industrial automation, climate technologies, and tools and storage businesses.

This is not the first time when Positive Technologies specialists have detected critical vulnerabilities in production systems. Previously, Siemens released several patches to fix a number of serious vulnerabilities in certain systems, including ICS (development tools and HMI). Moreover, Positive Technologies experts helped to fix high-risk vulnerabilities in Wonderware Information Server by Invensys, which is a part of a unified solution for building SCADA and HMI systems.

Huawei thanked the Positive Technologies experts Timur Yunusov and Kirill Nesterov and the information security specialist Alexey Osipov, who detected a harmful vulnerability in Huawei 4G USB modems (E3272s) and helped to fix it.


Upon the research, the Chinese telecommunications equipment company issued a software update for the device.

According to the Huawei PSIRT bulletin, a potential intruder can block the device by sending a malicious packet. The Positive Technologies researchers claim that the vulnerability may lead to a DOS attack and remote arbitrary code execution via an XSS attack or stack overflow.

In late 2014, Positive Technologies specialists carried out a large-scale research on vulnerabilities in 4G USB modems, which included investigation of six different series of devices (including Huawei E3272s) with 30 various types of firmware.

By exploiting detected flaws, an intruder can gain rights on a remote modem, take control over the computer connected to the vulnerable modem, and obtain access to the subscribers account in the mobile operators portal. Moreover, attacks on SIM cards via binary SMS messages allow an attacker to intercept and decrypt a subscribers traffic, track his or her location, and block the SIM card. Timur Yunusov covered attacks on 4G network equipment in his speech at PHDays V in May 2015. You can watch his presentation Bootkit via SMS: 4G Access Level Security Assessment on Positive Technologies page on YouTube.

This is not the first research on the safety of telecommunications equipment and mobile network conducted by Positive Technologies experts. In January 2015, Evgeny Stroev issued a report on severe SNMP vulnerabilities in network equipment produced by Huawei and H3C. Those vulnerabilities allowed penetrating a corporate network of any company, including a technological network of a mobile carrier.

A research, carried out by Dmitry Kurbatov, Sergey Puzankov, and Pavel Novikov in February 2015, revealed that a good few of 2G and 3G mobile networks can be accessed via the internet because of open GTP ports and other open data transfer protocols (FTP, Telnet, HTTP). An attacker can connect to the node of a mobile network operator by exploiting vulnerabilities (for example, default passwords) in these interfaces.