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.

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.

Beckhoff TwinCAT supports communication over ADS. ADS is a protocol for industrial automation in protected environments. ADS has not been designed to achieve security purposes and therefore does not include any encryption algorithms because of their negative effect on performance and throughput. An attacker can forge arbitrary ADS packets when legitimate ADS traffic is observable.

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.

Beckhoff Embedded PC images before 2014-10-22 and Automation Device Specification (ADS) TwinCAT components might allow remote attackers to obtain access via the (1) Windows CE Remote Configuration Tool, (2) CE Remote Display service, or (3) TELNET service.

Beckhoff Embedded PC images before 2014-10-22 and Automation Device Specification (ADS) TwinCAT components do not restrict the number of authentication attempts, which makes it easier for remote attackers to obtain access via a brute-force attack.

Beckhoff TwinCAT 2.11.0.2004 and earlier allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service via a crafted request to UDP port 48899, which triggers an out-of-bounds read.