Pin control attack
Cyberattack that disables I/O functions / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Pin control attack is a class of attack against a system on a chip (SoC) in an embedded system where an attacker targets the I/O configuration of the embedded systems and disables software or operating system I/O functions without detection. The attack is possible due to a lack of hardware protection for pin configuration and pin multiplexing configurations.
The most significant target for a pin control attack is a programmable logic controller (PLC). The application of pin control attack on PLCs is significant because I/O is the main mechanism through which PLCs interact with and control the outside world. PLC I/O like other embedded devices are controlled by a pin based approach. Pin control attack is an attack in which the attacker can tamper with the integrity and availability of PLC I/O by exploiting certain pin control operations and the lack of hardware interrupts associated with them.
The first example of such an attack was first unveiled at Black Hat Europe 2016.[1] The pin control attack uses I/O peripheral configuration settings of the PLC SoC to physically terminate the I/O module communication interface from the PLC. By targeting the PLC I/O configuration instead of the PLC runtime or changing the logic program the attackers can avoid the typical detection mechanisms that exist in embedded systems.[2]