Quantum Secular Labs / Blog / Advisories

CVE-2018-14829: Rockwellautomation Rslinx: Buffer overflow

CVE-2018-14829 is rated critical with a CVSS v3.0 base score of 9.8 and affects Rockwellautomation Rslinx. Per its scoring, it can be exploited over the network, without authentication, without any user interaction. The scored impact on confidentiality, integrity and availability is the highest available.

Vulnerability description

Rockwell Automation RSLinx Classic Versions 4.00.01 and prior. This vulnerability may allow a remote threat actor to intentionally send a malformed CIP packet to Port 44818, causing the software application to stop responding and crash. This vulnerability also has the potential to exploit a buffer overflow condition, which may allow the threat actor to remotely execute arbitrary code.

Severity breakdown

CVSS v3.0 9.8: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Attack vector: Network. Exploitable remotely over the network, with no need for local or physical access.
Attack complexity: Low. No special conditions; the attack can be repeated reliably.
Privileges required: None. No account or prior access is needed.
User interaction: None. No action from any user is needed.
Scope: Unchanged. Impact stays within the vulnerable component.
Confidentiality impact: High. Total loss of confidentiality; sensitive data can be fully disclosed.
Integrity impact: High. Total loss of integrity; data or system state can be fully modified.
Availability impact: High. Total loss of availability; the component can be shut down.

Underlying weakness

CWE-121: Stack-based Buffer Overflow

The product writes past the end of a buffer that was allocated on the stack.

CWE-119: Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

The product performs operations on a memory buffer, but it reads from or writes to a memory location outside the buffer's intended boundary.

Affected products

Rockwellautomation Rslinx: up to and including 4.00.01