Tenable Research Discovers Vulnerability in Siemens Critical Infrastructure Design Software

Phil Black - PII Editor 10/07/2019

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Tenable®, Inc., the Cyber Exposure company, today announced its research team discovered a critical vulnerability in Siemens STEP 7 TIA Portal, design and automation software for industrial control systems (ICS).

The vulnerability, which impacts the same family of devices compromised in the STUXNET attack, could be used as a stepping stone in a tailored attack against critical infrastructure, with the potential for catastrophic damage.

The flaw [CVE-2019-10915] would allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to perform any administrative actions on the system, enabling them to add malicious code to adjacent ICS.

A bad actor could also exploit the vulnerability to harvest data in order to plan a future, targeted attack. The delicate nature and function of critical infrastructure means a successful cyberattack could result in damage to operational technology equipment, disrupt operations, destruction of hardware or cyber espionage.

“Attacks on critical infrastructure go well-beyond cyberspace — they have the potential to cause physical damage and harm. And the threats to these often delicate systems cannot be overstated,”

said Renaud Deraison, chief technology officer and co-founder, Tenable.

“Cooperation and collaboration between researchers and vendors are of utmost importance when it comes to vulnerability disclosures. Tenable Research is committed to working with willing vendors, like Siemens, to protect organisations everywhere from new and emerging threats.”

Siemens has released patches to address this vulnerability. Users are urged to confirm their systems have been updated to the latest version.