5 Medium
CVSS2
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Authentication
NONE
Confidentiality Impact
NONE
Integrity Impact
PARTIAL
Availability Impact
NONE
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N
0.027 Low
EPSS
Percentile
90.5%
Independent researcher Joel Langill identified a directory traversal vulnerability in Honeywell’s Experion PKS application. This vulnerability exists in all unsupported phased out versions of the application that is still in use by some customers. Honeywell has recommended users of the vulnerable versions upgrade to supported versions of the software, which have patches available.
This vulnerability could be exploited remotely. Exploits that target this vulnerability are known to be publicly available.
The following Honeywell Experion PKS software releases are affected:
An attacker may use this vulnerability to perform initial information disclosure, including access to credentials that could be used to escalate privileges.
Impact to individual organizations depends on many factors that are unique to each organization. NCCIC/ICS-CERT recommends that organizations evaluate the impact of this vulnerability based on their operational environment, architecture, and product implementation.
Honeywell is a US-based company that maintains offices worldwide.
The affected product, certain versions of Experion PKS, is an advanced client-server distributed control system (DCS) architecture deployed across multiple critical and noncritical industries, including Energy and Chemical sectors.
The affected products contain a directory traversal vulnerability that could allow an attacker to escalate privileges on the system to gain access to the host’s root directory.
CVE-2007-6483 NVD, http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2007-6483, web site last accessed September 29, 2015. has been assigned to this vulnerability. A CVSS v3 base score of 9.4 has been assigned; the CVSS vector string is (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:L). CVSS Calculator, https://www.first.org/cvss/calculator/3.0#CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:L, web site last accessed September 29, 2015.
This vulnerability could be exploited remotely.
An attacker with a low skill would be able to exploit this vulnerability.
An attacker with a low skill would be able to exploit this vulnerability.
Honeywell recommends that customers using these versions upgrade to supported versions of Experion software. Since the vulnerable service remains installed, attention should be paid to ensuring that the Windows firewall remain enabled at all times. Enabling the Windows-based firewall and maintaining other safeguards can mitigate the risk.
The current status of Honeywell Experion support is:
For existing customers more information can be found on the Honeywell Process Solutions website (login required).
ICS-CERT recommends that users take defensive measures to minimize the risk of exploitation of these vulnerabilities. Specifically, users should:
ICS-CERT reminds organizations to perform proper impact analysis and risk assessment prior to deploying defensive measures.
ICS-CERT also provides a section for control systems security recommended practices on the ICS-CERT web page at: http://ics-cert.us-cert.gov/content/recommended-practices. Several recommended practices are available for reading and download, including Improving Industrial Control Systems Cybersecurity with Defense-in-Depth Strategies.
Additional mitigation guidance and recommended practices are publicly available in the ICS‑CERT Technical Information Paper, ICS-TIP-12-146-01B–Targeted Cyber Intrusion Detection and Mitigation Strategies, that is available for download from the ICS-CERT web site (http://ics-cert.us-cert.gov/).
Organizations observing any suspected malicious activity should follow their established internal procedures and report their findings to ICS-CERT for tracking and correlation against other incidents.
Previous Recommendations can be used as needed (otherwise, delete this text). List other products that are specific to the topic (i.e., phishing mitigations):
In addition, ICS-CERT recommends that users take the following measures to protect themselves from social engineering attacks:
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