Taking Apart and Taking Over ICS & SCADA Ecosystems
TXOne researchers audit the Mitsubishi Electric factory automation ecosystem, discovering critical vulnerabilities in engineering software, protocols, and PLCs.
Summary
The Role of Mitsubishi Electric in Global Critical Infrastructure
Mitsubishi Electric Industrial Control Systems (ICS) power critical manufacturing, oil and gas, municipal water, and transportation networks across the globe.
Deconstructing Proprietary Factory Automation Protocols
Mars Cheng and Selmon Yang reverse engineer proprietary communication protocols and engineering software suites (MELSEC, GX Works) used to program programmable logic controllers (PLCs).
Discovering Critical Zero-Days Across the Ecosystem
The researchers reveal a chain of vulnerabilities—including unauthenticated PLC memory overwrites, protocol injection bugs, and engineering workstation DLL hijacks.
Mitigating Operational Technology Risks
The authors discuss coordinated disclosure with Mitsubishi and provide industrial defenders with network segmentation blueprints and OT intrusion signatures.
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