Unpatched Schneider Electric powered PowerLogic ION/PM intelligent meters are open to risky attacks.
Critical security vulnerabilities in Schneider Electrical sensible meters could enable an attacker a route to remote code execution (RCE), or to reboot the meter resulting in a denial-of-support (DoS) ailment on the product.
Schneider Electric’s PowerLogic ION/PM smart meter item line, like other wise meters, is employed by shoppers in their households, but also by utility organizations that deploy these meters in order to keep track of and monthly bill clients for their expert services. They are also employed by industrial businesses, information centers and health care corporations.
Two vulnerabilities ended up disclosed this week, existing in a lot of variations of the solutions. According to Claroty, which initially found the flaws, they stem from the point that the good meters communicate using a proprietary ION protocol around TCP port 7700, and packets gained by the system are parsed by a condition equipment function.
“We located that it is probable to bring about [a pre-authentication integer-overflow vulnerability] throughout the packet-parsing process by the primary condition machine perform by sending a crafted ask for,” scientists reported, in a website submitting this week. “This can be carried out without the need of authentication due to the fact the ask for is entirely parsed ahead of it is taken care of or authentication is checked.”
The functionality that parses the incoming packet reads the amount of items or characters in the string or array and the buffer, which is a fixed dimension, scientists discussed. They found out that they have been in a position to fully handle the sizing of the buffer with a DWORD that is examine from the ask for.
A DWORD, which is brief for “double term,” is a details kind definition is an unsigned, 32-bit unit of data that is precise to Microsoft Windows. It can incorporate an integer price in the array by 4,294,967,295.
“We found a bug in the operate that is liable for advancing the parsing buffer, we named this purpose advance_buffer,” in accordance to Claroty’s evaluation. “We uncovered that the progress_buffer perform generally returns genuine, no matter of other interior functions failing and returning false. As a result, giving any big packet measurement will often go the progress_buffer perform without triggering an mistake message or exception. Thus, Claroty scientists ended up ready to bypass buffer checks and arrive at exploitation.”
Two Exploitation Paths, Two Bugs
Even though looking into the various firmware for the intelligent meters, researchers discovered that there are two unique exploitation paths that come up from improper restriction of operations inside of a memory buffer, dependent on the certain architecture. They noted these as two various vulnerabilities.
The bug tracked as CVE-2021-22714 rates 9.8 out of 10 on the CVSS vulnerability-severity scale.
“This vulnerability [is a] critical integer-overflow vulnerability that could empower an attacker to send out a specially crafted TCP packet to the unit to possibly bring about it to reboot the meter or remotely operate code of their choice, dependent on the architecture of the qualified unit,” according to the advisory.
Schneider Electric powered explained the affected products contain:
- ION7400 (prior to V3..)
- ION9000 (prior to V3..)
- PM8000 (prior to V3..)
The bug tracked as CVE-2021-22713 exists in a quantity of variations of the PowerLogic ION line of meters, but was assessed a CVSS rating of 7.5 due to the fact effective exploitation of the versions does not enable distant code execution, and permits only an attacker to force the meter to reboot.
The listing of affected products consists of:
- ION8650 (prior to V4.40.1)
- ION8800 (prior to V372)
- ION7650 Hardware rev. 4 or earlier (prior to V376)
- ION7650 Hardware rev. 5 (prior to V416)
- ION7700/73xx (all variations)
- ION83xx/84xx/8600 (all variations)
The vulnerability was tackled in updates unveiled in January and March, and users are urged to transfer to the patched variations:
- ION8650 buyers should really update to V4.40.1, launched on Jan. 4
- ION8800 customers need to update to V372, unveiled on March 3
- ION7650 Hardware rev. 4 or before need to update to V376, produced on March 3
- ION7650 Components rev. 5 must update to V416, unveiled on March 3
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Some parts of this article are sourced from:
threatpost.com