Challenge Overview

Welcome to HydraOne Industries, a company that manages precision water-based cooling systems for data centers and manufacturing plants. The system relies on automated pressure meters to regulate water flow and pressure across multiple critical pipelines. Each pipeline is controlled by a MODBUS TCP/IP-based PLC, which reads pressure data from sensors and actuates valves accordingly. Sudden spikes or drops in pressure can trigger emergency shutdowns or water diversion-something malicious actors could exploit. HydraCore suspects a potential vulnerability in the MODBUS system after pressure fluctuations caused a system-wide alert. You're a cybersecurity expert brought in to simulate a controlled attack by manipulating the water pressure readings to cause the system to reveal a hidden flag. In this challenge, participants discover a web interface displaying real-time pressure metrics. Using network tools and Metasploit, they exploit the Modbus protocol to set the pressure to 100 psi, revealing the hidden flag.

What You Will Learn

  • Using tools like Nmap to identify open ports and detect the presence of SCADA services such as Modbus running on the target system.
  • Discovering the web interface for the pressure monitoring system and performing a brute-force login attack to gain access.
  • Understanding and interacting with the Modbus protocol used by PLCs in SCADA environments.
  • Leveraging the Metasploit module modbusclient to write specific values to Modbus registers.
  • Modifying the PLC register to set the water pressure to 100 PSI, demonstrating how attackers can manipulate industrial processes to trigger system responses and reveal the hidden flag.

Program Curriculum

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