Siemens SIMATIC S7-1200 up to 2.5 Connection Packet resource consumption

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Siemens SIMATIC S7-1200 up to 2.5. It has been classified as problematic. The impacted element is an unknown function of the component Connection Handler. The manipulation as part of Packet leads to resource consumption. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2018-13815. The attack is possible to be carried out remotely. No exploit exists. Upgrading the affected component is recommended.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as problematic, has been found in Siemens SIMATIC S7-1200 up to 2.5 (SCADA Software). This issue affects an unknown code block of the component Connection Handler. The manipulation as part of a Packet leads to a resource consumption vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-400. The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource, thereby enabling an actor to influence the amount of resources consumed, eventually leading to the exhaustion of available resources. Impacted is availability. The summary by CVE is:

A vulnerability has been identified in SIMATIC S7-1200 (All versions), SIMATIC S7-1500 (All Versions < V2.6). An attacker could exhaust the available connection pool of an affected device by opening a sufficient number of connections to the device. Successful exploitation requires an attacker to be able to send packets to port 102/tcp of the affected device. No user interaction and no user privileges are required to exploit the vulnerability. The vulnerability, if exploited, could cause a Denial-of-Service condition impacting the availability of the system. At the time of advisory publication no public exploitation of this vulnerability was known.

The bug was discovered 11/13/2018. The weakness was disclosed 12/13/2018 (Website). The advisory is shared at cert-portal.siemens.com. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2018-13815 since 07/10/2018. The attack may be initiated remotely. No form of authentication is needed for a successful exploitation. Neither technical details nor an exploit are publicly available. MITRE ATT&CK project uses the attack technique T1499 for this issue.

The vulnerability was handled as a non-public zero-day exploit for at least 30 days. During that time the estimated underground price was around $5k-$25k.

Upgrading eliminates this vulnerability.Addressing this vulnerability is possible by firewalling tcp/102. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

The vulnerability is also documented in the vulnerability database at SecurityFocus (BID 105928†). Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Type

• SCADA Software

Vendor

• Siemens

Name

• SIMATIC S7-1200

Version

• 2.0
• 2.1
• 2.2
• 2.3
• 2.4
• 2.5

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.siemens.com/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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Entryinfo

Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

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