Security Vulnerabilities in ROS
As far as I'm aware, when a ROS master starts up on a machine, it opens a port for any network machine to attach to. This means that any machine with a route to the ROS machine can freely ask that ROS master for anything it has control over, for example, setting up ROSTCP/UDP connections with nodes running under that master. From an exploiter's point of view, this means that one has access to many avenues of exploitation on a machine running ROS. In the worst case, if a node running with sufficient privilege can potentially allow for an exploiter to run arbitrary code on the ROS machine with administrative privileges. Even on your average case, an exploiter can ask to connect to a topic such as a velocity command on a ROS system connected to mechanical hardware and actually manipulate hardware.
Are there any security measures in place for preventing this kind of situation? If not, are there any plans for adding measures, for example: credentials, to future distros of ROS?
