ICS Advisory

Emerson DeltaV Vulnerabilities

Last Revised
Alert Code
ICSA-14-133-02

OVERVIEW

This advisory was originally posted to the US-CERT secure Portal library on May 13, 2014, and is being released to the NCCIC/ICS-CERT web site.

Emerson has identified two authorization vulnerabilities in the Emerson DeltaV application. These vulnerabilities were reported directly to Emerson by Kirill Nesterov, Alexander Tlyapov, Dmitry Nagibin, Alexey Osipov, and Timur Yunusov of Positive Technologies. Emerson has produced a patch that mitigates these vulnerabilities.

AFFECTED PRODUCTS

The following Emerson DeltaV versions are affected:

  • DeltaV Versions 10.3.1, 11.3, 11.3.1, and 12.3

IMPACT

An attacker that has local access to the affected product may be able to read and replace configuration files and log into accounts for which they do not have the correct authorization. A successful exploit of these vulnerabilities is likely to cause a denial of service.

Impact to individual organizations depends on many factors that are unique to each organization. ICS-CERT recommends that organizations evaluate the impact of these vulnerabilities based on their operational environment, architecture, and product implementation.

BACKGROUND

Emerson is a global manufacturing and technology company offering multiple products and services in the industrial, commercial, and consumer markets through its network power, process management, industrial automation, climate technologies, and tools and storage businesses.

Emerson’s DeltaV is a general purpose process control system that is used worldwide primarily in the oil and gas and chemical industries.

VULNERABILITY CHARACTERIZATION

VULNERABILITY OVERVIEW

IMPROPER AUTHORIZATIONCWE-285: Improper Authorization, http://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/285.html, web site last accessed May 22, 2014.

A local attacker with engineering level user privileges can read and replace DeltaV configuration files in the \DeltaV directory.

CVE-2014-2349NVD, http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2014-2349, NIST uses this advisory to create the CVE web site report. This web site will be active sometime after publication of this advisory. has been assigned to this vulnerability. Emerson has assigned a CVSS v2 base score of 6.2; the CVSS vector string is (AV:L/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:C/A:C).CVSS Calculator, http://nvd.nist.gov/cvss.cfm?version=2&vector=AV:L/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:C/A:C, web site last accessed May 22, 2014.

HARD-CODED CREDENTIALSCWE-798: Use of Hard-coded Credentials, http://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/798.html, web site last accessed May 22, 2014.

Several DeltaV service processes have diagnostic telnet ports using hardcoded credentials that can be discovered and used by an attacker.

CVE-2014-2350NVD, http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2014-2350, NIST uses this advisory to create the CVE web site report. This web site will be active sometime after publication of this advisory. has been assigned to this vulnerability. Emerson has assigned CVSS v2 base score of 2.4; the CVSS vector string is (AV:L/AC:H/Au:S/C:N/I:P/A:P).CVSS Calculator, http://nvd.nist.gov/cvss.cfm?version=2&vector=AV:L/AC:H/Au:S/C:N/I:P/A:P, web site last accessed May 22, 2014.

VULNERABILITY DETAILS

EXPLOITABILITY

These vulnerabilities are not exploitable remotely and cannot be exploited without user interaction.

EXISTENCE OF EXPLOIT

No known public exploits specifically target these vulnerabilities.

DIFFICULTY

An attacker with a low skill would be able to exploit these vulnerabilities.

MITIGATION

Emerson has created a patch to mitigate these vulnerabilities. Emerson has distributed a notification (KBA NK-1400-0031) that provides details of the vulnerabilities, recommended mitigations, and instructions on obtaining and installing the patch. This document is available on Emerson’s support site to users who have support contracts with Emerson. If you do not have access to this site and need to apply the patch, please contact customer service at 1‑800‑833‑8314.

ICS-CERT encourages asset owners to take additional defensive measures to protect against this and other cybersecurity risks.

  • Minimize network exposure for all control system devices and/or systems, and ensure that they are not accessible from the Internet.
  • Locate control system networks and remote devices behind firewalls, and isolate them from the business network.
  • When remote access is required, use secure methods, such as Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), recognizing that VPNs may have vulnerabilities and should be updated to the most current version available. Also recognize that VPN is only as secure as the connected devices.

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. ICS-CERT reminds organizations to perform proper impact analysis and risk assessment prior to deploying defensive measures.

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 (www.ics-cert.org).

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.

In addition, ICS-CERT recommends that users take the following measures to protect themselves from social engineering attacks:

  1. Do not click web links or open unsolicited attachments in email messages.
  2. Refer to Recognizing and Avoiding Email ScamsRecognizing and Avoiding Email Scams, http://www.us-cert.gov/reading_room/emailscams_0905.pdf, web site last accessed May 22, 2014. for more information on avoiding email scams.
  3. Refer to Avoiding Social Engineering and Phishing AttacksNational Cyber Alert System Cyber Security Tip ST04-014, http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/tips/ST04-014.html, web site last accessed May 22, 2014. for more information on social engineering attacks.

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Vendor

Emerson