CVE-2024-4080 National Instruments CVE debrief

Who should care

Organizations using National Instruments LabVIEW in industrial automation, test and measurement, or control systems environments. System administrators managing LabVIEW deployments and security teams responsible for protecting engineering workstations should prioritize patching.

Technical summary

The vulnerability resides in tdcore_24_1.dll, a library component of National Instruments LabVIEW. A memory corruption condition can be triggered when processing malformed VI files, enabling local attackers to achieve information disclosure or arbitrary code execution. The attack requires social engineering to convince a user to open a malicious file. The vulnerability affects LabVIEW versions 24.1f0 and earlier. National Instruments has released patches addressing improper length checks that lead to the memory corruption.

Defensive priority

HIGH

Recommended defensive actions

• Apply the security updates provided by National Instruments for affected LabVIEW versions (<=24.1f0)
• Refer to National Instruments security advisories for detailed patch information
• Implement application whitelisting to prevent execution of untrusted VI files
• Train users to avoid opening VI files from untrusted sources
• Consider network segmentation for systems running LabVIEW in industrial control environments

Evidence notes

The vulnerability exists in the tdcore_24_1.dll library within LabVIEW installations. Exploitation requires a local attacker to convince a user to open a malicious VI (Virtual Instrument) file, triggering the memory corruption condition. The CVSS vector indicates local attack vector with low attack complexity, no privileges required, but user interaction is necessary. The confidentiality, integrity, and availability impacts are all rated HIGH.

Official resources