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CVE-2024-41941 Siemens CVE debrief

CVE-2024-41941 is a medium-severity authorization bypass vulnerability in Siemens SINEC NMS, published on August 13, 2024. The affected application fails to properly enforce authorization checks, allowing an authenticated attacker to bypass these checks and modify application settings without proper authorization. The vulnerability has a CVSS 3.1 score of 4.3 (MEDIUM severity) with the vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N/E:P/RL:O/RC:C, indicating network attack vector, low attack complexity, low privileges required, no user interaction, and low impact to integrity. Siemens has released a vendor fix: users should update to SINEC NMS V3.0 or later. This vulnerability is not listed in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.

Vendor
Siemens
Product
SINEC NMS
CVSS
MEDIUM 4.3
CISA KEV
Not listed in stored evidence
Original CVE published
2024-08-13
Original CVE updated
2024-08-13
Advisory published
2024-08-13
Advisory updated
2024-08-13

Who should care

Organizations operating Siemens SINEC NMS for industrial network management, particularly in critical infrastructure sectors. Security teams responsible for OT/ICS environments, network administrators managing industrial control systems, and compliance officers overseeing NERC CIP or similar industrial security frameworks should prioritize this update.

Technical summary

CVE-2024-41941 affects Siemens SINEC NMS (Network Management System), an industrial network management platform. The vulnerability stems from improper authorization enforcement in the application, allowing authenticated users to bypass intended access controls. An attacker with valid credentials can exploit this flaw to modify application settings without possessing the required authorization level. The attack requires network access and valid low-privilege credentials but no user interaction. The integrity impact is rated low, with no confidentiality or availability impact. Exploitation has been observed in the wild (E:P). Siemens has addressed this in version 3.0 and later.

Defensive priority

medium

Recommended defensive actions

  • Update Siemens SINEC NMS to version 3.0 or later to remediate this authorization bypass vulnerability
  • Review and validate user access controls and authorization policies within SINEC NMS deployments
  • Monitor for unauthorized configuration changes in SINEC NMS environments
  • Apply defense-in-depth strategies for industrial control systems as recommended by CISA
  • Restrict network access to SINEC NMS management interfaces to authorized administrative hosts only

Evidence notes

Authorization bypass vulnerability in Siemens SINEC NMS allowing authenticated attackers to modify settings without proper authorization. CVSS 3.1 score 4.3 (MEDIUM). Vendor fix available: update to V3.0 or later.

Official resources

2024-08-13