IOServer Resource Exhaustion Vulnerability
Low RiskICS-CERT ICSA-14-289-01Jul 19, 2014
Summary
IOServer version 1.0.20 and older is vulnerable to resource exhaustion attacks. An attacker can send requests that consume excessive system resources (memory, connections, CPU), causing the application to become unresponsive or fail. This is a CWE-400 issue affecting availability of services that depend on IOServer. The vendor has not released a patch for this vulnerability.
What this means
What could happen
A remote attacker could exhaust IOServer's resources (memory, connections, or processing capacity), causing the application to become unresponsive and interrupt communication or data processing functions dependent on IOServer.
Who's at risk
Organizations relying on IOServer for industrial data collection, SCADA communication, or real-time monitoring—particularly water utilities, electric utilities, and manufacturing facilities—should evaluate their exposure if IOServer is deployed in their control network or data acquisition infrastructure.
How it could be exploited
An attacker with network access to IOServer could send a flood of requests or specially crafted messages designed to consume excessive system resources, exhausting available memory, connection pools, or CPU capacity and rendering the service unavailable.
Prerequisites
- Network access to IOServer on its listening port
- No authentication required to trigger resource exhaustion
remotely exploitableno authentication requiredno patch availableresource exhaustion can degrade or halt industrial operations
Exploitability
Low exploit probability (EPSS 0.4%)
Affected products (1)
ProductAffected VersionsFix Status
IOServer: 1.0.20_and_older1.0.20 and olderNo fix (EOL)
Remediation & Mitigation
0/5
Do now
0/1WORKAROUNDImplement connection rate limiting and request throttling on network infrastructure upstream of IOServer to mitigate flood-based resource exhaustion
Schedule — requires maintenance window
0/1Patching may require device reboot — plan for process interruption
HARDENINGReview IOServer configuration to disable unused features or services that may consume resources unnecessarily
Mitigations - no patch available
0/3IOServer: 1.0.20_and_older has reached End of Life. The vendor will not release a patch. Apply the following compensating controls:
HARDENINGImplement network access controls and firewall rules to restrict connections to IOServer to only authorized engineering and monitoring stations
HARDENINGMonitor IOServer process resource usage (memory, connections, CPU) and configure alerts for abnormal spikes that may indicate an attack
HARDENINGIsolate IOServer on a dedicated network segment with controlled access from only required systems
CVEs (1)
↑↓ Navigate · Esc Close
API:
/api/v1/advisories/5345c14e-006f-4c33-950c-3f1d2d3b1be4