Critical Denial-of-Service Vulnerability Discovered in Rockwell Automation ControlLogix Systems
CISA warns of a high-severity flaw in Rockwell Automation ControlLogix redundancy modules that could enable denial-of-service attacks. Patch now.
Critical DoS Vulnerability Identified in Rockwell Automation ControlLogix
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has disclosed a critical vulnerability in Rockwell Automation ControlLogix redundancy modules that could allow threat actors to trigger a denial-of-service (DoS) condition on affected industrial control systems (ICS). The advisory, published as ICSA-26-029-03, highlights the risk to operational technology (OT) environments relying on these systems.
Technical Details
The vulnerability affects the following Rockwell Automation ControlLogix versions:
- ControlLogix Redundancy Modules (specific versions not disclosed in the advisory)
While CISA’s advisory does not provide a CVE ID or detailed technical root cause, successful exploitation could disrupt critical industrial processes by crashing or destabilizing the affected redundancy modules. These modules are designed to ensure high availability in OT environments, making their compromise particularly impactful.
Impact Analysis
A DoS condition in ControlLogix redundancy modules could lead to:
- Unplanned downtime in manufacturing, energy, or critical infrastructure sectors.
- Loss of redundancy, increasing the risk of system failures during maintenance or cyber incidents.
- Potential safety risks if the DoS condition cascades to other connected ICS components.
Given the prevalence of Rockwell Automation systems in industrial control environments, organizations using affected versions should prioritize remediation to mitigate operational and safety risks.
Recommendations
CISA and Rockwell Automation urge affected organizations to:
- Apply patches or mitigations as soon as they become available from Rockwell Automation.
- Monitor ICS networks for unusual traffic or signs of exploitation attempts.
- Implement network segmentation to limit lateral movement in OT environments.
- Review CISA’s advisory (ICSA-26-029-03) and the CSAF document for technical updates.
Organizations should also consider proactive threat hunting to detect any signs of compromise, particularly in high-risk sectors such as energy, water, and manufacturing.
For further details, refer to the original CISA advisory.