Analyzing Impact and Systemwide Effects of the SlowROS Attack in an Industrial Automation Scenario

Ivan Cibrario Bertolotti, Luca Durante and Enrico Cambiaso ()
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Ivan Cibrario Bertolotti: Istituto di Elettronica e di Ingegneria dell Informazione e delle Telecomunicazioni (IEIIT), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), 10129 Turin, Italy
Luca Durante: Istituto di Elettronica e di Ingegneria dell Informazione e delle Telecomunicazioni (IEIIT), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), 10129 Turin, Italy
Enrico Cambiaso: Istituto di Elettronica e di Ingegneria dell Informazione e delle Telecomunicazioni (IEIIT), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), 16152 Genoa, Italy

Future Internet, 2025, vol. 17, issue 4, 1-24

Abstract: The ongoing adoption of Robot Operating Systems (ROSs) not only for research-oriented projects but also for industrial applications demands a more thorough assessment of its security than in the past. This paper highlights that a key ROS component—the ROS Master—is indeed vulnerable to a novel kind of Slow Denial of Service (slow DoS) attack, the root reason of this vulnerability being an extremely high idle connection timeout. The effects of vulnerability exploitation have been evaluated in detail by means of a realistic test bed, showing how it leads to a systemwide and potentially dangerous disruption of ROS system operations. Moreover, it has been shown how some basic forms of built-in protection of the Linux kernel can be easily circumvented, and are therefore ineffective against this kind of threat.

Keywords: cybersecurity; denial of service; slow DoS attack; industrial security; ROS; critical infrastructure protection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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