Flaw in Schneider Electric Web HMI Allows Authentication Bypass
The U.S. Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT) published an advisory this week to warn organizations of a directory traversal vulnerability affecting several products developed by energy management solutions company Schneider Electric.
The vulnerability (CVE-2014-0754) exists in the SchneiderWEB Web human-machine interface (HMI), which is deployed in products used across several sectors, including communications, energy, critical manufacturing, water and wastewater systems. The vulnerability affects the Modicon PLC Ethernet communication modules in a total of 22 products, ICS-CERT noted.
“This vulnerability allows an attacker to bypass the basic authentication on the web server. Using directory traversals an attacker can bypass the basic authentication mechanism in the web server and gain unauthorized access to protected resources. This vulnerability would require network access to the target device through TCP/IP and particularly HTTP,” Schneider Electric said in its own advisory.
According to ICS-CERT, the flaw can be exploited remotely by an attacker with a low skill level.
Related: Learn More at the 2014 ICS Cyber Security Conference
ICS-CERT says the vulnerability has been identified by Billy Rios, an independent security researcher who has often uncovered flaws in ICS and SCADA systems. Schneider Electric noted that the same issue was also uncovered during internal investigations. Rios has confirmed that the updates produced by the company properly address the vulnerability.
It appears several security experts are focusing their efforts on finding flaws in Schneider Electric products these days. An advisory published by ICS-CERT last month revealed the existence of three vulnerabilities in the company’s StruxureWare SCADA Expert ClearSCADA products.
In July, Schneider Electric teamed up with Waterfall Security Solutions in an effort to protect its customers’ systems with the aid of Waterfall’s Unidirectional Security Gateway technologies.
Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.
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