CISA Warns of Security Flaws in GE Power Management Devices

The U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is warning of critical-severity security flaws in GE’s Common Relay (UR) family of electric power management products.

GE’s UR gadgets are the “basis of simplified power management for the defense of critical belongings,” according to the firm. These are computing devices that allow for buyers to control the quantity of electrical energy consumed by various device. The UR units permit the underlying products to change into various electrical power modes (each individual owning various power utilization properties). GE has issued patches for the pursuing affected UR gadget households: B30, B90, C30, C60, C70, C95, D30, D60, F35, F60, G30, G60, L30, L60, L90, M60, N60, T35 and T60.

CISA warned that if not updated, the influenced items could be exploited to make it possible for an attacker to access sensitive information, reboot the UR, gain privileged obtain, or result in a denial-of-assistance ailment.

Presented that the devices control the flow and path of electrical ability, the effect of these flaws is heightened: “GE strongly recommends people with impacted firmware variations update their UR units to UR firmware Variation 8.10, or increased to take care of these vulnerabilities,” according to CISA’s notify last week.

GE Security Flaws

Total, 9 vulnerabilities had been patched throughout the afflicted equipment. The most severe of the these (CVE-2021-27426) has a CVSS score of 9.8 out of 10, creating it critical. The flaw stems from insecure default variable initialization.  According to an IBM security notify, an influenced GE UR spouse and children could let a distant attacker to bypass security constraints, stemming from insecure default variable initialization in the UR Intelligent Digital Machine (IED) ingredient.

“By sending a specifically-crafted ask for, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability to bypass accessibility limitations,” in accordance to IBM. According to GE, the flaw is remotely exploitable and calls for a “low skill level to exploit.”

One more high-severity issue (CVE-2021-27430) stems from the truth that the UR bootloader binary in variations 7.00, 7.01 and 7.02 incorporates hardcoded credentials. According to IBM, a regional attacker could exploit this vulnerability to interrupt the boot sequence by rebooting the UR. The flaw ranks 8.4 on the CVSS scale, generating it substantial-severity.

“Additionally, a person with physical accessibility to the UR IED can interrupt the boot sequence by rebooting the UR,” said CISA.

A further significant-severity issue (CVE-2021-27422) is that the web server interface for the influenced equipment are supported on UR more than the HTTP protocol – permitting for delicate details publicity with out authentication, stated researchers.

Finally, researchers found that a flaw in the web-primarily based UR Setup configuration tool (CVE-2021-27428) of the affected UR families could permit a remote attacker to add arbitrary files.

“By sending a specially-crafted ask for, a distant attacker could exploit this vulnerability to enhance firmware with out correct privileges,” in accordance to an IBM advisory.

Security Updates: Patch Now

According to experiences, the flaws have been 1st identified in July – and the UR firmware version addressing the flaws (edition 8.10) was pushed out on Dec. 24. SCADA-X, DOE’s Cyber Screening for Resilient Industrial Manage Techniques (CyTRICS) method, Verve Industrial, and VuMetric claimed these flaws to GE.

However, soon after general public disclosure of the flaws previous 7 days CISA is now urging conclude buyers to update their UR units. No acknowledged community exploits for the vulnerabilities have been found yet, famous CISA.

“GE endorses safeguarding UR IED by utilizing network defense-in-depth techniques,” according to CISA’s notify. “This includes, but is not restricted to, placing UR IED inside of the management program network security perimeter, and possessing entry controls, checking (this sort of as an Intrusion Detection Process), and other mitigating technologies in area.”

GE has dealt with security issues right before. In December, a pair ofcritical vulnerabilities ended up discovered in dozens of GE Healthcare radiological units well known in hospitals, which could allow an attacker to obtain obtain to sensitive individual wellbeing information (PHI), alter data and even shut the machine’s availability down.

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