Siemens issued an advisory on July 11, 2024, highlighting a critical vulnerability in their SIMATIC WinCC systems. This flaw, designated CVE-2024-30321, affects various versions of the SIMATIC WinCC and PCS 7 products, including all versions of SIMATIC PCS 7 V9.1 and several versions of WinCC Runtime Professional and WinCC. The vulnerability is categorized under CWE-359, which involves the exposure of private personal information. It enables unauthenticated remote attackers to access sensitive information like users’ credentials, potentially compromising system security.
The affected products include SIMATIC WinCC V7.4 (prior to V7.4 SP1 Update 23), V7.5 (prior to V7.5 SP2 Update 17), V8.0 (prior to V8.0 Update 5), and others. Siemens’ advisory points out that these versions do not adequately handle specific web application requests, leading to potential leaks of privileged information. The CVSS v4 score for this vulnerability is 8.2, indicating a significant risk of exploitation. The vulnerability’s high impact stems from its ability to expose critical data without requiring authentication from the attacker.
In response, Siemens has released updates for the affected products and recommends upgrading to the latest versions to mitigate the risk. For SIMATIC PCS 7 V9.1, users should update to V7.5 SP2 Update 17 or later. Similarly, updates are advised for SIMATIC WinCC V7.4, V7.5, and V8.0. Siemens also suggests applying specific workarounds, such as restricting webserver access to trusted users and enhancing network security according to their operational guidelines.
CISA advises organizations to take defensive measures and perform a thorough risk assessment before implementing updates. While there are no known public exploits specifically targeting this vulnerability, organizations should follow established procedures for detecting and responding to malicious activity. The advisory encourages adopting best practices for industrial control systems cybersecurity to proactively defend against such vulnerabilities.
