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About this paper
Anastasis Keliris, Michail Maniatakos
NYU researchers developed ICSREF, an automated framework for reverse engineering proprietary Industrial Control Systems (ICS) Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) binaries, particularly those compiled with CODESYS. It reconstructs complete Control Flow Graphs, identifies I/O operations, and matches known functions, demonstrating the capability to generate and deploy process-aware attacks against a chemical process testbed in under five minutes.
Key insights
- Proprietary CODESYS PLC binaries follow a predictable structure with identifiable headers, subroutine delimiters, and a runtime-constructed call table that can be fully reconstructed.
- Symbolic execution can effectively resolve indirect jumps and reconstruct call tables in PLC binaries, enabling 100% sound and complete CFG generation despite their unique characteristics.
- Automated reverse engineering of PLC binaries enables dynamic generation of process-aware payloads, significantly lowering the technical barrier for sophisticated ICS attacks without prior system intelligence.
Summary by alphaXiv.
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