Particulars have emerged about a number of safety vulnerabilities in two implementations of the Manufacturing Message Specification (MMS) protocol that, if efficiently exploited, may have extreme impacts in industrial environments.
“The vulnerabilities may permit an attacker to crash an industrial machine or in some instances, allow distant code execution,” Claroty researchers Mashav Sapir and Vera Mens mentioned in a brand new evaluation.
MMS is an OSI utility layer messaging protocol that allows distant management and monitoring of business units by exchanging supervisory management data in an application-agnostic method.
Particularly, it permits for communication between clever digital units (IEDs) and supervisory management and information acquisition (SCADA) methods or programmable logic controllers (PLCs).
The 5 shortcomings recognized by the operational know-how safety firm affect MZ Automation’s libIEC61850 library and Triangle MicroWorks’ TMW IEC 61850 library, and had been patched in September and October 2022 following accountable disclosure –
- CVE-2022-2970 (CVSS rating: 10.0) – A stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability in libIEC61850 that might result in a crash or distant code execution
- CVE-2022-2971 (CVSS rating: 8.6) – A kind confusion vulnerability in libIEC61850 that might permit an attacker to crash the server with a malicious payload
- CVE-2022-2972 (CVSS rating: 10.0) – A stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability in libIEC61850 that might result in a crash or distant code execution
- CVE-2022-2973 (CVSS rating: 8.6) – A null pointer deference vulnerability that might permit an attacker to crash the server
- CVE-2022-38138 (CVSS rating:7.5) – An entry of uninitialized pointer vulnerability that enables an attacker to trigger a denial-of-service (DoS) situation
Claroty’s evaluation additionally discovered that Siemens SIPROTEC 5 IED relied on an outdated model of SISCO’s MMS-EASE stack for MMS assist, which is prone to a DoS situation through a specifically crafted packet (CVE-2015-6574, CVSS rating: 7.5).
The German firm has since up to date its firmware with an up to date model of the protocol stack as of December 2022, in accordance with an advisory launched by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company (CISA).
The analysis highlights the “hole between fashionable know-how’s safety calls for and the outdated, hard-to-replace protocols,” Claroty mentioned, urging distributors to observe safety tips issued by CISA.
The disclosure comes weeks after Nozomi Networks detailed two vulnerabilities within the reference implementation of Espressif’s ESP-NOW wi-fi protocol (CVE-2024-42483 and CVE-2024-42484) that might permit replay assaults and trigger a DoS situation.
“Relying on the system being focused, this vulnerability [CVE-2024-42483] can have profound penalties,” it mentioned. “ESP-NOW is utilized in safety methods akin to constructing alarms, permitting them to speak with movement sensors.”
“In such a situation, an attacker may exploit this vulnerability to replay a beforehand intercepted respectable ‘OFF’ command, thereby disabling a movement sensor at will.”
Alternatively, ESP-NOW’s use in distant door openers, akin to computerized gates and storage doorways, could possibly be weaponized to intercept an “OPEN” command and replay it at a later time to realize unauthorized entry to buildings.
Again in August, Nozomi Networks additionally make clear a set of unpatched 37 vulnerabilities within the OpenFlow libfluid_msg parsing library, collectively dubbed FluidFaults, that an adversary may exploit to crash Software program-Outlined Networking (SDN) purposes.
“An attacker with community visibility to an OpenFlow controller/forwarder can ship a malicious OpenFlow community packet that results in a denial-of-service (DoS) assault,” the corporate mentioned.
In current months, safety flaws have additionally been uncovered in Beckhoff Automation’s TwinCAT/BSD working system that might expose PLCs to logic tampering, DoS assaults, and even command execution with root privileges on the controller.
