Hardware vulnerabilities arise from insecure default configurations, outdated firmware, misconfiguration, and end-of-life equipment that no longer receives security patches. Identifying and addressing these risks is a foundational responsibility in any network environment.
Hardware Vulnerabilities
Let's start out with a little scenario, that we're getting a new piece of equipment. Maybe it's a switch right here, so we've got a switch that we need to set up and install.
By default, this switch is probably going to be insecure. As an example, it probably comes with some default settings and default credentials. So here we have a username of admin and a password of admin to log into the switch. And then the switch by default is set up with just some standard stuff already set up, and it's generally insecure. This is problematic, because now somebody who's on the system would be able to hack into this. So you can't just set up a piece of hardware and expect it to be secure.
One of the reasons for a piece of equipment automatically being insecure is because the manufacturer intends it to be that way. Here's what I mean by that. What they do is, they want to deliver you a product that works. They don't want a product that doesn't work. So what happens is they deliver you a switch that is already set up to be functioning, so you can start plugging stuff into it and have communication going across your network. They don't want you to start plugging stuff into it and none of the ports are live and none of the stuff is working right because it's all secure, it's all locked down. They don't want you calling up and saying, hey, I got a dud switch, please send me a new one.
Instead, they give it to you so that it's fully functioning. It has a lot of services that are up and running on it, all the ports are live on it, their software is running on it, so that way you have a streamlined experience to easily get into this piece of equipment and manage it. But for that reason, there are a lot of things that are set up insecure.
For instance, they've got services that are running on here and open service ports that are running on here, so that way when you set it up it just automatically functions. Well, you don't need all of those services. There's a good chance that a lot of the services that are up and running need to be shut off and closed off. This is what we need to do, and if you don't do it, then this creates a vulnerability on your network, because it creates an exposure: somebody can find out what those open ports and open services are. The more open ports and services that are on a machine, the more susceptible this machine is to vulnerabilities.
Another thing that happens is that this hardware has some sort of firmware on it. From the time that this machine was built and assembled and put together and the firmware went onto this machine, it goes and gets sent to all of these distribution centers and finally gets delivered to the end customer. By that point in time, this firmware is outdated and has all sorts of security holes in it that need to be patched. So outdated software on these things is a problem. One of the things that we need to do when we first get a machine is update and patch it.
This is especially true for things like internet of things, or some sort of industrial control systems. A lot of those go unpatched for a longer period of time. A lot of it is because of our own processes within our department, that is, those types of things get overlooked more so than computers. We know that computers need to be patched and updated, but we don't always think about maybe some sort of industrial control system, the thermostat, some sort of equipment that's running that's outside of our purview. Maybe a temperature gauge would be an example of this — maybe a temperature gauge running inside of our server room. That is something that could expose all of our servers if there's some sort of patch on that temperature gauge that we don't catch.
When we do go to configure things, we also have to watch out for misconfiguration, especially on certain pieces of equipment. If we misconfigure it, it really opens us up for some sort of issue, some sort of vulnerability.
Equipment also gets outdated. In fact, this switch is a good example of this. This is a switch that's called end of life. It's no longer being supported, they're no longer releasing updates for it, and so it's on an old version of firmware. The problem with this is that any new vulnerabilities that are found with that firmware don't get patched and updated.
Now, the vendor does this on purpose. The supplier does this on purpose, because they can't support a piece of equipment forever. As popularity for a certain switch or for a certain piece of hardware goes down, they start looking at, okay, when should we end of life this? That's when they're going to say, we're no longer supporting this piece of equipment.
At that point in time, once it goes end of life, we call this legacy equipment. Legacy equipment is older equipment that no longer is supported, that is end of life, that resides on our network. Sometimes we have got to support legacy equipment and we have to put some sort of compensating controls into place, but for the most part we want to avoid legacy equipment on our network as much as possible.
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