The difference between KNX and Zigbee
April 1st People are increasingly living and working in "smart" buildings and rely on automated processes to control heating, ventilation, air conditioning, lighting, security, and other operating systems. Can these systems protect against cyber attack threats?
Research teams from the Tencent Security Platform are preparing for the forthcoming Hack in the Box conference in April where they will demonstrate the security weaknesses of smart buildings. The team said that the current security issues of intelligent construction equipment have not received enough attention. They hope to take this opportunity to let more people pay attention to the hidden dangers of intelligent building safety.
Invasion of KNX and Zigbee Networks
The researchers of the Tencent Blade team have been focusing on exploring the KNX technology. They have proposed a new attack method that can control the KNX network components and tamper with them.
KNX is the world's only open and intelligent building control standard. It is a European bus technology. It is a building automation network communication protocol used in large public places (including stadiums, hotels, airports, etc.) and industrial facilities. KNX is independent of the manufacturer's and application's system. The information exchange can be performed by connecting the building management device to the KNX medium via bus devices (sensors/actuators) to achieve a unified system control, monitoring, and transmission of signals. Additional control center.
Zigbee is an emerging short-range, low-rate wireless network technology that is mainly used for short-range wireless connections. It has its own protocol standard and coordinates communication between thousands of tiny sensors. These sensors require very little energy, and transmit data from one sensor to another through radio waves in a relaying manner. Therefore, communication efficiency is very high. The communication protocol is widely used in home automation systems and is a low-power wireless communication technology.
The researchers attacked a hotel in a validation test and successfully controlled customer lighting, air conditioning, curtains, and other equipment in the target hotel. In an interview, the team said that this type of attack requires physical access to the KNX device cables in the room in order to use the KNX gateway to access the KNX network in the room. They use the KNX ETS software and a variety of KNX security test tools. The attack. â€
By analyzing the KNX protocol, the researchers discovered that the KNX/IP router configuration can be modified over a wired network without having to access the associated WiFi network or the external network.
There are currently several ways to defend against such attacks, such as: better KNX network isolation design, use of the latest version of the KNX protocol, and new security encryption mechanisms, while avoiding exposing KNX cables to areas that are easily accessible to outsiders .
Zigbee network automatic scanning and attack
Researchers also tested a large number of related devices that communicated using the Zigbee protocol and discovered multiple security vulnerabilities. Most devices are still using the old protocol version; devices using the newer version (v3.0) are pre-configured with a generic link key for installation to be compatible with other Zigbee devices. In addition, most devices rely on network keys to ensure the security of communication content.
Researchers have developed a tool called "ZomBee" that can be used to automatically scan and attack Zigbee networks. The tool runs on the Raspberry Pi and automatically scans all Zigbee network channels around the Zigbee device and attacks it through broadcast packets.
Although users can disable the Zigbee gateway's network access function after Zigbee device pairing is completed to prevent such attacks, manufacturers also need to consider introducing more security mechanisms. In addition, researchers also recommend that device manufacturers use more powerful Zigbee encryption keys and use secure encryption algorithms in the Zigbee application layer.
The difference between KNX and Zigbee
In terms of stability, bus communication is always more stable than wireless communication.
From the intervention phase, the bus technology needs to be involved from the design stage and the wireless technology can be involved at any time;
From the control function, the bus technology is more abundant and the wireless technology is single;
From a development point of view, wireless technology has given birth to a small market after more than 10 years of development.
KNX is a veritable European standard, international standard, Chinese standard, and American standard. KNX has entered China for nearly a decade. The time is still short, but considerable progress has been made. Many large building intelligent lighting systems now use the KNX bus for control. , such as Siemens, Schneider, ABB and other manufacturers of KNX control system.
ZIGBEE is a wireless communication technology. Unlike KNX, its standardization process is not yet full. At the same time, the development of enocean wireless passive technology has had a great impact on it.
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