"Bosch Nutrunner Vulnerabilities Could Aid Hacker Attacks Against Automotive Production Lines"
According to security researchers at Nozomi Networks, vulnerabilities found in Bosch Rexroth nutrunners used in the automotive industry could be exploited by hackers seeking direct financial gain or threat actors looking to cause disruption or reputational damage to the targeted organization. The researchers found security holes in Bosch Rexroth’s NXA015S-36V-B product, a cordless, handheld pneumatic torque wrench (also known as a nutrunner) designed for safety-critical tightening operations. The machine has a built-in display providing real-time data to the operator and it can also connect to a wireless network through an embedded Wi-Fi module, enabling it to transmit data to a historian server and allowing users to remotely reprogram it. The researchers discovered over two dozen vulnerabilities, a majority in the management application of the NEXO-OS operating system and some related to the communication protocols designed for integration with SCADA, PLC, and other systems. The researchers noted that exploiting the vulnerabilities could allow unauthenticated attackers to take complete control of a nutrunner. Lab tests conducted by the researchers demonstrated how an attacker could launch a ransomware attack that involves making the device inoperable and displaying a ransom message on its built-in screen. To make matters worse, such an attack can be automated to hack all of a company’s nutrunners, causing significant disruption in the production line.