Our team has been working hard in the lab, once again testing the optical implementations of a variety of smart meters. Using our proprietary in-house developed tool, called ProtoPredator for Smart Meters, we have been doing full fuzzing of optical protocol implementations. 

Our tool makes this process easy and reproducible. It also provides for easy regression testing and fix validation through session replays. 

One of the things that makes ProtoPredator so cool is that it includes both arbitrary conversations with the meters in addition to canned sessions, making much more flexible in the hands of a knowledgeable user. You can easily use this feature to perform more nuanced validation of the protocols, testing things like sequence errors, poor trust, error recovery, etc. 

While ProtoPredator is still tied to the optical coupler speed and the inherent speed of the protocols in use, testing with it makes validation of the optical ports more effective than other more traditional approaches. Additionally, you can use multiple seats of ProtoPredator in parallel to decrease the overall testing and validation time, especially since the “brain files” and packet sessions are easily interchangeable amongst installations.

The easy to use GUI also means less frustration and more time on task for most users. It lets the testers spend less time on mundane tasks like serial configuration and hand crafting packets and more time on security testing, protocol analysis and bug hunting.

To find out more about ProtoPredator, or to discuss having our lab give your smart meters a look over, get in touch. Info(at)micro solved(dot)com will get you a prompt response. As always, thanks for reading!