The Vulnerabilities Behind the Salt Typhoon Cyberattack and How dOISP Protocol Would Prevent Similar Incidents

by Mykhailo Magal, Ph.D., Head of Research and Development

The Salt Typhoon cyberattack, one of the most significant cyber events of 2024, highlighted the growing threats in the software supply chain ecosystem. Salt Typhoon exploited vulnerabilities in third-party software and exposed weaknesses that resonate with other high-profile supply chain attacks like SolarWinds. This article explores the specific vulnerabilities that led to the Salt Typhoon attack and how the decentralized, quantum-resistant security architecture of the dOISP protocol would have prevented such an attack.

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The Vulnerabilities Behind Salt Typhoon Cyberattack

1. Supply Chain Exploitation

The Salt Typhoon attackers took advantage of weaknesses in the software supply chain, targeting third-party vendors and services. Similar to the SolarWinds attack, which infiltrated thousands of organizations through a compromised update, Salt Typhoon worked by embedding malicious code into software updates or services. Organizations often place trust in third-party vendors without rigorous scrutiny, assuming that these updates are secure. This over-reliance on the trustworthiness of suppliers creates an easy entry point for attackers.

2. Unpatched Vulnerabilities

Salt Typhoon also exploited unpatched vulnerabilities in widely used software components. These vulnerabilities, which often remain exposed due to the slow rollout of security patches, give attackers the opportunity to gain access to systems that rely on outdated or vulnerable software versions. Unpatched vulnerabilities in critical third-party software opened the door for Salt Typhoon to infiltrate multiple organizations.

3. Insufficient Integrity and Verification Mechanisms

The absence or weakness of integrity checks on software updates and insufficient monitoring of third-party interactions allowed Salt Typhoon attackers to introduce compromised software into otherwise secure networks. Many organizations failed to implement mechanisms that would validate the authenticity of updates, making it easy for attackers to inject malicious payloads into trusted environments.

4. Over-Reliance on Centralized Trust Models

A major vulnerability exploited by Salt Typhoon was the traditional, centralized certificate-based authentication models, particularly those relying on outdated authentication methods. Attackers capitalized on weak links in this centralized trust model, manipulating third-party vendors that were trusted by multiple organizations. This approach made it easy for attackers to compromise the supply chain by breaching one provider and gaining access to their clients' systems.

Why dOISP Would Prevent Salt Typhoon and Similar Attacks

The dOISP (Decentralized Open Interoperable Security Protocol) is designed to address exactly the kinds of vulnerabilities that facilitated the Salt Typhoon attack. dOISP offers a decentralized, quantum-resistant, and highly secure method of authentication and data transmission, ensuring that supply chain attacks like Salt Typhoon are effectively neutralized.

1. Decentralized Authentication

One of the core features of dOISP is its decentralized authentication system. Unlike traditional certificate-based systems that rely on centralized authorities (which can be compromised), dOISP uses a decentralized network of trusted assets. This eliminates the single point of failure that attackers target in supply chain attacks. Each device and service in the network is authenticated independently, with no reliance on third-party certificates or central authorities. This architecture makes it nearly impossible for attackers to compromise a single vendor and use it as a backdoor to infiltrate numerous organizations.

2. Automated, Decentralized Key Management

Another critical defense provided by dOISP protocol is its built-in automated key management, which generates unique, one-session AES-256-GCM encryption keys for every interaction. In contrast to traditional key management systems that attackers often compromise to gain long-term access, dOISP’s dynamic key management ensures that even if an attacker gains access to a single session, they cannot reuse the encryption keys to infiltrate other sessions or parts of the network.

3. Integrity and Authenticity Checks

dOISP implements HMAC-based integrity checks on every piece of transmitted data, including software updates. This ensures that any modification or tampering during transmission is immediately detected. The Salt Typhoon attack would have been stopped by dOISP’s rigorous validation process, as malicious software updates injected into the supply chain would have failed the integrity checks, preventing them from being executed.

4. Supply Chain Resilience

With dOISP, every device or software component is authenticated through a decentralized network, and malicious actors cannot compromise the system by tempering with servers of a single vendor or software provider. This distributed trust model ensures that third-party vendor resources cannot become weak links in the supply chain, as each update or service must be validated independently through decentralized authentication with data authenticity and integrity check.

Conclusion

The Salt Typhoon cyberattack underscores the dangers posed by weaknesses in the global software supply chain. However, the dOISP protocol offers a robust solution, protecting against these vulnerabilities by decentralizing authentication, using quantum-resistant cryptography, implementing automated key management, and ensuring data authenticity and integrity. Had dOISP been in place during the Salt Typhoon attack, the malicious software updates would have been rejected, the vulnerabilities exploited by the attackers would have been neutralized, and the widespread infiltration of organizations would have been prevented.

By adopting dOISP, organizations can build a more resilient and secure cyber defense, safeguarding their systems from both current and future (post-quantum) supply chain threats.