CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2020-15787 — A vulnerability has been identified in SIMATIC HMI Unified Comfort Panels (All versions <= V16)

Critical CVSS 9.8

A vulnerability has been identified in SIMATIC HMI Unified Comfort Panels (All versions <= V16). Affected devices insufficiently validate authentication attempts as the information given can be truncated to match only a set number of characters versus the whole provided string. This could allow a remote attacker to discover user passwords and obtain access to the Sm@rt Server via a brute-force attack.

Severity
Critical
CVSS
9.8 (3.1)
Published
2020-09-09
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
operating-system
Weaknesses
CWE-305, CWE-287

Affected products

  • siemens / simatic_hmi_united_comfort_panels_firmware

Matched remediation archetype

Authentication bypass and missing authentication

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Map every affected endpoint and protocol path, including alternate ports, legacy routes, recovery flows, service accounts, and machine-to-machine access.
  • Confirm which deployments enable the affected authentication mode and whether the interface is reachable from untrusted networks.
  • Review session, token, credential, and proxy trust configuration without attempting account takeover.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and centralize fail-closed authentication before protected request handling.
  • Remove default or embedded credentials, rotate affected secrets and sessions, and bind authentication decisions to the intended audience and channel.
  • Add negative tests for alternate routes, malformed or absent credentials, recovery flows, and proxy-derived identity.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

The detailed catalog view below loads this exact record, its source evidence, and the full seven-phase agentic change plan.