Software Engineering Institute

RuggedCom Rugged Operating System (ROS), used in RuggedCom network infrastructure devices, contains a hard-coded user account named "factory" that cannot be disabled. The password for this account is based on the device's MAC address and can be reverse engineered easily (CWE-261: Weak Cryptography for Passwords).

ROS also supports HTTP(S) and ssh services. In ROS 3.3.x, these services do not use the factory account. ROS does not appear to log successful or unsuccessful login attempts for the factory account.

More information is available in "Undocumented Backdoor Access to RuggedCom Devices" and RuggedCom's security bulletin.

An attacker with knowledge of an ROS device's MAC address may be able to gain complete administrative control of the device. The MAC address is displayed in the pre-authentication banner.

According to RuggedCom's security bulletin, "Version 3.10.1 of the ROS® firmware with security related fixes will be released on Tuesday May 22, 2012 and can be obtained by emailing support@ruggedcom.com. Other ROS® firmware versions containing the same security fixes (3.9.3, 3.8.5, 3.7.9 & 3.11.0) will be released over the next few weeks on a staggered basis as development and testing is completed."

ICS-CERT Advisory ICSA-12-146-01A confirms that ROS version 3.10.1 is no longer affected, and that versions 3.9.3, 3.8.5, and 3.7.9 are now available.

Workarounds

ROS 3.3.x allows users to disable the rsh service and set the number of allowed telnet connections to 0. ROS 3.2.x does not alllow the rsh or telnet services to be disabled.