Security Experts:

Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Vulnerabilities

Siemens Patches Ethernet Switch Security Vulnerabilities

Siemens has patched two critical security flaws in its Ethernet switches uncovered by researchers with IOActive.

Siemens has patched two critical security flaws in its Ethernet switches uncovered by researchers with IOActive.

The vulnerabilities existed in Siemens’ SCALANCE X-200 Switch Family, which are used to connect industrial control system components such as programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and human machine interfaces (HMIs). According to Siemens, the switches offer a Web interface that allows users to change the configuration using a common Web browser.

The first vulnerability is CVE-2013-5709, and can be used to enable an attacker to hijack web sessions over the network without authentication. This is due to insufficient entropy in the random number generator used by vulnerable versions of the product, Siemens stated in an advisory.

The second vulnerability – CVE-2013-5944 – resides in the integrated web server of SCALANCE X-200 switches and could allow attackers to perform administrative operations over the network. This too can be done without authentication.

Siemens described the vulnerabilities in advisories here and here.

“Siemens ProductCERT were professional, courteous, and did not adopt an adversarial attitude when I contacted them about the vulnerabilities,” said Eireann Leverett, senior security consultant for IOActive in a statement. “Consequently, we were able to clarify the vulnerabilities quickly, and they produced a patch within three months.”

Leverett is slated to demonstrate the vulnerabilities and release code organizations can use to check their own devices at the S4 conference next week in Miami.

Siemens advises customers to apply the relevant firmware updates or upgrade.

Written By

Click to comment

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join this webinar to learn best practices that organizations can use to improve both their resilience to new threats and their response times to incidents.

Register

Join this live webinar as we explore the potential security threats that can arise when third parties are granted access to a sensitive data or systems.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Vulnerabilities

Less than a week after announcing that it would suspended service indefinitely due to a conflict with an (at the time) unnamed security researcher...

Risk Management

The supply chain threat is directly linked to attack surface management, but the supply chain must be known and understood before it can be...

Vulnerabilities

Apple has released updates for macOS, iOS and Safari and they all include a WebKit patch for a zero-day vulnerability tracked as CVE-2023-23529.

Application Security

Drupal released updates that resolve four vulnerabilities in Drupal core and three plugins.

Cloud Security

VMware vRealize Log Insight vulnerability allows an unauthenticated attacker to take full control of a target system.

Application Security

A CSRF vulnerability in the source control management (SCM) service Kudu could be exploited to achieve remote code execution in multiple Azure services.

IoT Security

Lexmark warns of a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability impacting over 120 printer models, for which PoC code has been published.

Vulnerabilities

GoAnywhere MFT users warned about a zero-day remote code injection exploit that can be targeted directly from the internet