Supply Chain Compromise

Adversaries may perform supply chain compromise to gain control systems environment access by means of infected products, software, and workflows. Supply chain compromise is the manipulation of products, such as devices or software, or their delivery mechanisms before receipt by the end consumer. Adversary compromise of these products and mechanisms is done for the goal of data or system compromise, once infected products are introduced to the target environment.

Supply chain compromise can occur at all stages of the supply chain, from manipulation of development tools and environments to manipulation of developed products and tools distribution mechanisms. This may involve the compromise and replacement of legitimate software and patches, such as on third party or vendor websites. Targeting of supply chain compromise can be done in attempts to infiltrate the environments of a specific audience. In control systems environments with assets in both the IT and OT networks, it is possible a supply chain compromise affecting the IT environment could enable further access to the OT environment.

Counterfeit devices may be introduced to the global supply chain posing safety and cyber risks to asset owners and operators. These devices may not meet the safety, engineering and manufacturing requirements of regulatory bodies but may feature tagging indicating conformance with industry standards. Due to the lack of adherence to standards and overall lesser quality, the counterfeit products may pose a serious safety and operational risk. (Citation: Control Global May 2019)

Yokogawa identified instances in which their customers received counterfeit differential pressure transmitters using the Yokogawa logo. The counterfeit transmitters were nearly indistinguishable with a semblance of functionality and interface that mimics the genuine product. (Citation: Control Global May 2019)

F-Secure Labs analyzed the approach the adversary used to compromise victim systems with Havex. (Citation: Daavid Hentunen, Antti Tikkanen June 2014) The adversary planted trojanized software installers available on legitimate ICS/SCADA vendor websites. After being downloaded, this software infected the host computer with a Remote Access Trojan (RAT).

Adversaries may manipulate products or product delivery mechanisms prior to receipt by a final consumer for the purpose of data or system compromise.

Supply chain compromise can take place at any stage of the supply chain including:

• Manipulation of development tools
• Manipulation of a development environment
• Manipulation of source code repositories (public or private)
• Manipulation of source code in open-source dependencies
• Manipulation of software update/distribution mechanisms
• Compromised/infected system images
• Replacement of legitimate software with modified versions
• Sales of modified/counterfeit products to legitimate distributors
• Shipment interdiction

While supply chain compromise can impact any component of hardware or software, attackers looking to gain execution have often focused on malicious additions to legitimate software in software distribution or update channels. Targeting may be specific to a desired victim set or malicious software may be distributed to a broad set of consumers but only move on to additional tactics on specific victims. Popular open source projects that are used as dependencies in many applications may also be targeted as a means to add malicious code to users of the dependency, specifically with the widespread usage of third-party advertising libraries.(Citation: Grace-Advertisement)(Citation: NowSecure-RemoteCode)