Overview
The cybersecurity realm is ever-evolving, and vulnerabilities are discovered daily. Today, we shed light on a critical vulnerability that has surfaced in TeleControl Server Basic, a widely-used industrial control system software. The vulnerability, identified as CVE-2025-32851, is a severe SQL Injection flaw that can be exploited by an authenticated remote attacker to manipulate the application’s database and execute code. Its severity stems from its potential to bypass authorization controls, which could result in substantial system compromise or data leakage.
Vulnerability Summary
CVE ID: CVE-2025-32851
Severity: High (8.8)
Attack Vector: Network
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: Required
Impact: System compromise and potential data leakage
Affected Products
No phone number, email, or personal info required.
Product | Affected Versions
TeleControl Server Basic | All versions < V3.1.2.2 How the Exploit Works
The vulnerability resides in the ‘UnlockTcmSettings’ method used internally by the application. An attacker who has gained authenticated access to the system can inject malicious SQL commands, exploiting this flaw. This attack, if successful, allows the attacker to bypass authorization controls, leading to unauthorized access to the application’s database. With this access, the attacker can read from and write to the database, and execute code with “NT AUTHORITYNetworkService” permissions. For this attack to be successful, the attacker needs access to port 8000 on a system where a vulnerable version of the application is being executed.
Conceptual Example Code
An example of how this vulnerability might be exploited is shown below. This is a conceptual example and does not represent a real SQL injection attack.
POST /UnlockTcmSettings HTTP/1.1
Host: target.example.com
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Basic base64credentials
{
"settings": "'; DROP TABLE users;--"
}In this example, the attacker sends a malicious payload that, if executed, could result in dropping the “users” table from the database.
Mitigation Guidance
To mitigate this vulnerability, users of the affected TeleControl Server Basic versions are advised to apply a vendor patch. If the patch is not available or cannot be applied immediately, a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) can be used as a temporary mitigation measure. It is crucial always to keep software up-to-date and regularly monitor systems for unusual activity to minimize the impact of such vulnerabilities.