TwinCAT OPC UA Server in versions up to 2.3.0.12 and IPC Diagnostics UA Server in versions up to 3.1.0.1 from Beckhoff Automation GmbH & Co. KG are vulnerable to denial of service attacks. The attacker needs to send several specifically crafted requests to the running OPC UA server. After some of these requests the OPC UA server is no longer responsive to any client. This is without effect to the real-time functionality of IPCs.

The default installation path of the TwinCAT XAR 3.1 software in all versions is underneath C:\TwinCAT. If the directory does not exist it and further subdirectories are created with permissions which allow every local user to modify the content. The default installation registers TcSysUI.exe for automatic execution upon log in of a user. If a less privileged user has a local account he or she can replace TcSysUI.exe. It will be executed automatically by another user during login. This is also true for users with administrative access. Consequently, a less privileged user can trick a higher privileged user into executing code he or she modified this way. By default Beckhoff’s IPCs are shipped with TwinCAT software installed this way and with just a single local user configured. Thus the vulnerability exists if further less privileged users have been added.

Beckhoff Embedded Windows PLCs through 3.1.4024.0, and Beckhoff Twincat on Windows Engineering stations, allow an attacker to achieve Remote Code Execution (as SYSTEM) via the Beckhoff ADS protocol.

When Beckhoff TwinCAT is configured to use the Profinet driver, a denial of service of the controller could be reached by sending a malformed UDP packet to the device. This issue affects TwinCAT 2 version 2304 (and prior) and TwinCAT 3.1 version 4204.0 (and prior).

When a Beckhoff TwinCAT Runtime receives a malformed UDP packet, the ADS Discovery Service shuts down. Note that the TwinCAT devices are still performing as normal. This issue affects TwinCAT 2 version 2304 (and prior) and TwinCAT 3.1 version 4204.0 (and prior).

Beckhoff TwinCAT 3 supports communication over ADS. ADS is a protocol for industrial automation in protected environments. This protocol uses user configured routes, that can be edited remotely via ADS. This special command supports encrypted authentication with username/password. The encryption uses a fixed key, that could be extracted by an attacker. Precondition of the exploitation of this weakness is network access at the moment a route is added.

Kernel drivers in Beckhoff TwinCAT 3.1 Build 4022.4, TwinCAT 2.11 R3 2259, and TwinCAT 3.1 lack proper validation of user-supplied pointer values. An attacker who is able to execute code on the target may be able to exploit this vulnerability to obtain SYSTEM privileges.