PT-2015-12: Privilege Gaining in Siemens SIMATIC WinCC (TIA Portal)

Vulnerable software

Siemens SIMATIC WinCC (TIA Portal)
Version: 13 and earlier

Link:
http://www.siemens.com/

Severity level

Severity level: Medium
Impact: Privilege Gaining
Access Vector: Remote

CVSS v2:
Base Score: 6.8
Vector: (AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P)

CVE: CVE-2014-4686

Software description

Siemens SIMATIC WinCC (TIA Portal) is an engineering software to configure and program SIMATIC Panels, SIMATIC Industrial PCs, and Standard PCs running WinCC Runtime Advanced or SCADA System WinCC Runtime Professional visualization software.

Vulnerability description

The specialists of the Positive Research center have detected a Privilege Gaining vulnerability in Siemens SIMATIC WinCC (TIA Portal).

Vulnerability exists due to a hard coded encryption key in WinCC RT Professional, which allows remote attackers to obtain sensitive information and escalate their privileges by sniffing network traffic.

How to fix

Update your sofware up to the latest version

Advisory status

21.09.2012 - Vendor gets vulnerability details
13.02.2015 - Vendor releases fixed version and details
25.02.2015 - Public disclosure

Credits

The vulnerability was detected by Gleb Gritsai, Roman Ilin, Alexander Tlyapov, and Sergey Gordeychik, Positive Research Center (Positive Technologies Company)

References

http://en.securitylab.ru/lab/PT-2015-12
http://www.siemens.com/innovation/pool/de/forschungsfelder/siemens_security_advisory_ssa-543623.pdf

Reports on the vulnerabilities previously discovered by Positive Research:

http://www.ptsecurity.com/research/advisory/
http://en.securitylab.ru/lab/