Adcon Telemetry A850 Telemetry Gateway Base Station Vulnerabilities

OVERVIEW

Independent researcher Aditya K. Sood has identified a cross-site scripting vulnerability in Adcon Telemetry’s A850 Telemetry Gateway Base Station. Adcon Telemetry has produced a new firmware version to mitigate this vulnerability.

This vulnerability could be exploited remotely.

AFFECTED PRODUCTS

The following A850 Telemetry Gateway Base Station versions are affected:

• A850 Telemetry Gateway Base Station, all versions.

IMPACT

Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could allow the injection of arbitrary JavaScript that may affect the integrity of the system.

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.

BACKGROUND

Adcon Telemetry is an Austria-based company that maintains offices in several countries around the world, including the US, Germany, and Austria.

The affected product, A850 Telemetry Gateway Base Station, is a wireless telemetry system. According to Adcon Telemetry, A850 Telemetry Gateway Base Stations are deployed across several sectors including Commercial Facilities, Critical Manufacturing, Water and Wastewater Systems, and others. Adcon Telemetry estimates that this product is used primarily in the United States and Europe.

VULNERABILITY CHARACTERIZATION

VULNERABILITY OVERVIEW

The Web Interface does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes user-controllable input before it is placed in the output, this could allow for cross-site scripting.

CVE-2016-2274NVD, http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2016-2274, 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. A CVSS v3 base score of 9.8 has been assigned; the CVSS vector string is (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H).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:H, web site last accessed December 08, 2016.

VULNERABILITY DETAILS

EXPLOITABILITY

This vulnerability could be exploited remotely.

EXISTENCE OF EXPLOIT

No known public exploits specifically target this vulnerability.

DIFFICULTY

An attacker with a low skill would be able to exploit this vulnerability.

MITIGATION

Adcon Telemetry has produced a new firmware version to mitigate this vulnerability. Adcon recommends users contact its distributor for information on how to obtain the new firmware version.

ICS-CERT recommends that users take defensive measures to minimize the risk of exploitation of this vulnerability. Specifically, users should:

• 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 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. 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.

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.