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Fencer Vulns
high 7.5

CVE-2018-16561 json

A vulnerability has been identified in SIMATIC S7-300 CPUs (All versions < V3.X.16).

published 2019-04-17 7 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2018-8368

cvss
7.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.4%
EPSS 1.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 72%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

A vulnerability has been identified in SIMATIC S7-300 CPUs (All versions < V3.X.16). The affected CPUs improperly validate S7 communication packets which could cause a Denial-of-Service condition of the CPU. The CPU will remain in DEFECT mode until manual restart. Successful exploitation requires an attacker to be able to send a specially crafted S7 communication packet to a communication interface of the CPU. This includes Ethernet, PROFIBUS, and Multi Point Interfaces (MPI). No user interaction or privileges are required to exploit the security vulnerability. The vulnerability could allow causing a Denial-of-Service condition of the core functionality of the CPU, compromising the availability of the system. At the time of advisory publication no public exploitation of this security vulnerability was known. Siemens confirms the security vulnerability and provides mitigations to resolve the security issue.

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

cisa ICSA-19-043-04 updated cvss 7.5

Siemens SIMATIC S7-300 CPU

  • Siemens SIMATIC S7-300 CPU family (incl. related ET200 CPUs and SIPLUS variants) <V3.X.16
    affected: fixed in V3.X.16, mitigation

Facts from CISA's republication of the vendor's own advisory (CSAF); the linked advisory is the authoritative source. CISA notification · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
5 mo ago

Exploit prediction

1.40% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 72% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CISA ADP 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 3.0 7.5 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.8 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C

Affected products

  • Siemens SIMATIC S7-300 CPUs

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-20 Improper Input Validation

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.