As part of Team82's continued mission and focus to support and secure critical infrastructure, researcher Tal Keren has discovered a vulnerability (CVE-2019-19279) in the Siemens Digsi 4 protocol. This vulnerability allows for a denial-of-service (DOS) attack against Siemens SIPROTEC 4 protection relays, designed specifically for electrical substations. This is the same protocol that was exploited by the Industroyer malware in 2016.
Team82 immediately reported this research and coordinated with Siemens, which has now released an advisory (SSA-974843) with workarounds and mitigations.
The Industroyer malware, also referred to as Crashoverride, was used to attack the Ukraine power grid in 2016, and it contained targeted industrial cybersecurity (ICS) payloads that allowed it to communicate using ICS protocols and specifically attack the electrical substations of the targeted companies. Substations are critical in power generation, distribution, and transmission networks. A very important component in a substation is the protection relay, which is responsible for monitoring the actual current transmitted in every location and may trip any circuit breaker if anything unexpected happens. Without this protection relay, anything from a power outage to physical damage and even safety issues could occur.
Some of the payloads used by Industroyer were designed to cause DOS on the protection relays and remote terminal units (RTU) used in the targeted power grid companies and act as a kill switch. One of the specifically targeted ICS payloads found in the Industroyer malware (CVE-2015-5374) that was implemented caused DOS on Siemens SIPROTEC 4 protection relays. This vulnerability used the SIPROTEC 4 programming protocol (Digsi 4) that communicates over UDP port 50000, and the proof of concept (POC) code implementing it is available publicly.
The newest vulnerability discovered by Claroty uses a malicious packet in that same protocol to cause a DOS on those relays, thus allowing an attacker to reproduce the damage caused by Industroyer. This Digsi4 protocol allows users to program the protection relay and change its behavior. Like many other ICS related protocols, this protocol was developed by Siemens as a proprietary protocol. In that, the challenge for traditional IT security products aiming to protect against such attacks is increased, as a specific understanding of the protocol and deep packet inspection (DPI) capabilities are required.
It is important to note that the advisory published by Siemens contains workarounds and mitigations for this issue. Siemens has also improved security in the newer SIPROTEC 5 relays, whose communication protocol is encrypted and utilizes improved security.
Many other protection relays and other types of ICS hardware in the industry use proprietary protocols for programming purposes. Securing these critical devices requires deep understanding of those protocols, a fundamental knowledge of Operational Technology (OT) security, and continuous research to find and map potential vulnerabilities—whether in the design of the protocol, implementation, or determining attempts to abuse it.
CWE-121 STACK-BASED BUFFER OVERFLOW:
Affected Vertiv products contain a stack based buffer overflow vulnerability. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to gain code execution on the device.
Vertiv recommends users take the following actions:
CVSS v3: 9.8
CWE-288 AUTHENTICATION BYPASS USING AN ALTERNATE PATH OR CHANNEL:
Affected Vertiv products do not properly protect webserver functions that could allow an attacker to bypass authentication.
Vertiv recommends users take the following actions:
CVSS v3: 9.8
CWE 287: Improper Authentication
An Improper Authentication vulnerability exists in Danfoss AK-SM8xxA Series, resulting in an authentication bypass. Install the latest patch with number 4.2 to remediate this vulnerability. This flaw could enable an attacker to generate a web report that discloses sensitive information such as internal IP addresses, usernames, store names, and other sensitive information.e
CVSS v3: 8.2
CWE-798 USE OF HARD-CODED CREDENTIALS:
In Optigo Networks ONS NC600 versions 4.2.1-084 through 4.7.2-330, an attacker could connect with the device's ssh server and utilize the system's components to perform OS command executions.
Optigo Networks recommends users implement at least one of the following additional mitigations:
CVSS v3: 9.8
CWE-78 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command:
A remote unauthenticated attacker who has bypassed authentication could execute arbitrary OS commands to disclose, tamper with, destroy or delete information in Mitsubishi Electric smartRTU, or cause a denial-of service condition on the product.
Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V. recommends that users take note of the following mitigation measures to minimize the risk of exploiting this vulnerability:
CVSS v3: 9.8
