Researchers from Claroty this week disclosed multiple critical vulnerabilities in vendor implementations of the Open Platform Communications (OPC) network protocol that is widely used in operational technology (OT) networks.
The flaws affect products from three vendors whose technologies are also being used as third-party components in multiple other white-label products running the OPC protocol. Claroty privately reported its vulnerability discoveries to the three vendors in 2020. The products have since been patched, prompting Claroty to publicly disclose the issue for the first time this week.
In a blog post, the vendor described the security issues as exposing organizations using the vulnerable products to distributed denial-of-service attacks, remote code execution, and leaks and theft of sensitive data.
"Many commercial [industrial control system] products use the OPC protocol for the secure exchange of information between devices across an operational technology network," says Uri Katz, protocol researcher at Claroty.
The protocol ensures interoperability between proprietary industrial control systems and is a critical piece of an OT network. Vulnerabilities in vendor implementations of the OPC protocol can have serious implications for the reliability and availability of devices, Katz says.
"OPC is a crucial part of many OT networks, and even creating denial-of-service conditions on OPC servers could critically impact OT processes," he adds. According to Katz, all of the vulnerabilities that Claroty discovered are trivial to exploit for attackers familiar with how the OPC protocol works.
Claroty, an OT security company, discovered the security bugs while conducting a broad vulnerability analysis of the OPC protocol in 2020. The company decided to investigate the protocol because of its wide use in industrial control ..
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