CVE-2022-41976
📋 TL;DR
CVE-2022-41976 is a privilege escalation vulnerability in Scada-LTS that allows authenticated low-privileged users to elevate their privileges to administrator level by modifying their user profile. This affects Scada-LTS installations with version 2.7.1.1 build 2948559113 where user accounts exist.
💻 Affected Systems
- Scada-LTS
📦 What is this software?
Scada Lts by Scada Lts
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
An attacker with any authenticated account can gain full administrative control over the SCADA system, potentially manipulating industrial processes, disabling safety controls, or exfiltrating sensitive operational data.
Likely Case
Malicious insiders or compromised low-privilege accounts escalate to administrator privileges, gaining unauthorized access to critical SCADA functions and configuration settings.
If Mitigated
With proper network segmentation and access controls, impact is limited to the SCADA application layer, though administrative compromise remains significant.
🎯 Exploit Status
Exploitation requires authenticated access but is straightforward via web interface or API calls. Public blog post details the vulnerability.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: Versions after 2.7.1.1 build 2948559113
Vendor Advisory: https://github.com/SCADA-LTS/Scada-LTS/releases
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Backup current installation and database. 2. Download latest Scada-LTS release from GitHub. 3. Replace affected files with patched version. 4. Restart Scada-LTS service. 5. Verify user role permissions are functioning correctly.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Temporary User Role Restriction
allDisable user profile modification for non-admin users via application configuration or database constraints.
# Modify application configuration to restrict profile updates
# Database query: UPDATE users SET can_edit_profile = 0 WHERE role != 'admin'
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Implement strict network segmentation to isolate Scada-LTS from untrusted networks
- Remove all non-essential user accounts and implement multi-factor authentication for remaining accounts
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check Scada-LTS version in admin interface or via application files. Version 2.7.1.1 build 2948559113 is vulnerable.Check Version:
# Check version in Scada-LTS web interface under System Information or via application.properties fileVerify Fix Applied:
After patching, attempt to modify user role as low-privileged user - this should fail with proper authorization error.📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Unusual user role change events
- Multiple failed authorization attempts followed by successful privilege escalation
- User profile update requests from low-privilege accounts
Network Indicators:
- HTTP POST requests to user profile update endpoints from unexpected sources
- Unusual administrative API calls from non-admin IP addresses
SIEM Query:
source="scada-lts" AND (event_type="user_update" OR event_type="role_change") AND user_role!="admin"🔗 References
- http://scada-lts.org/
- https://github.com/SCADA-LTS/Scada-LTS/releases
- https://m3n0sd0n4ld.blogspot.com/2022/11/scada-lts-privilege-escalation-cve-2022.html
- http://scada-lts.org/
- https://github.com/SCADA-LTS/Scada-LTS/releases
- https://m3n0sd0n4ld.blogspot.com/2022/11/scada-lts-privilege-escalation-cve-2022.html
