A vulnerability has been identified in SIMATIC HMI Comfort Panels 4 - 22 (All versions < V15.1 Update 1), SIMATIC HMI Comfort Outdoor Panels 7 & 15 (All versions < V15.1 Update 1), SIMATIC HMI KTP Mobile Panels KTP400F, KTP700, KTP700F, KTP900 und KTP900F (All versions < V15.1 Update 1), SIMATIC WinCC Runtime Advanced (All versions < V15.1 Update 1), SIMATIC WinCC Runtime Professional (All versions < V15.1 Update 1), SIMATIC WinCC (TIA Portal) (All versions < V15.1 Update 1), SIMATIC HMI Classic Devices (TP/MP/OP/MP Mobile Panel) (All versions). The affected device offered SNMP read and write capacities with a publicly know hardcoded community string. The security vulnerability could be exploited by an attacker with network access to the affected device. Successful exploitation requires no system privileges and no user interaction. An attacker could use the vulnerability to compromise confidentiality and integrity of the affected system. At the time of advisory publication no public exploitation of this security vulnerability was known.
The product contains hard-coded credentials, such as a password or cryptographic key, which it uses for its own inbound authentication, outbound communication to external components, or encryption of internal data.
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simatic_hmi_comfort_panels_firmware | Siemens | * | 15.1 (excluding) |
Hard-coded credentials typically create a significant hole that allows an attacker to bypass the authentication that has been configured by the product administrator. This hole might be difficult for the system administrator to detect. Even if detected, it can be difficult to fix, so the administrator may be forced into disabling the product entirely. There are two main variations:
In the Inbound variant, a default administration account is created, and a simple password is hard-coded into the product and associated with that account. This hard-coded password is the same for each installation of the product, and it usually cannot be changed or disabled by system administrators without manually modifying the program, or otherwise patching the product. If the password is ever discovered or published (a common occurrence on the Internet), then anybody with knowledge of this password can access the product. Finally, since all installations of the product will have the same password, even across different organizations, this enables massive attacks such as worms to take place. The Outbound variant applies to front-end systems that authenticate with a back-end service. The back-end service may require a fixed password which can be easily discovered. The programmer may simply hard-code those back-end credentials into the front-end product. Any user of that program may be able to extract the password. Client-side systems with hard-coded passwords pose even more of a threat, since the extraction of a password from a binary is usually very simple.