Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
A remote unauthenticated attacker could crash Rockwell Automation RSLinx Classic by sending a malformed CIP packet to Port 44818. The business impact is loss of software functionality until someone manually restarts it, which can disrupt industrial visibility or communications that depend on RSLinx Classic.
Executive priority
Treat this as a moderate-priority industrial availability risk. Prioritize exposed or poorly segmented deployments first, because the issue can be triggered remotely without authentication and requires manual recovery.
Technical view
CVE-2018-14821 affects Rockwell Automation RSLinx Classic versions 4.00.01 and prior. The described issue is CWE-122 and can terminate the RSLinx Classic application when malformed CIP traffic reaches Port 44818. The source bundle does not provide CVSS scoring or a confirmed patch version.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most likely where RSLinx Classic 4.00.01 or earlier is reachable on Port 44818 from untrusted or weakly segmented networks.
Exploitation context
The bundle does not show CISA KEV listing or cited evidence of active exploitation. The described attack is remote and unauthenticated, but the stated impact is application termination requiring manual restart, not confirmed code execution.
Researcher notes
Evidence is limited to the provided CVE summary and references. Do not assume broader Rockwell product impact, code execution, public exploitation, or a specific fixed version without checking the linked advisories directly.
Mitigation direction
- Identify RSLinx Classic deployments and versions across engineering and operations networks.
- Check Rockwell and CISA guidance for the supported remediation or upgrade path.
- Restrict Port 44818 access to trusted industrial hosts where operationally feasible.
- Ensure operators know restart procedures for affected RSLinx Classic systems.
- Monitor for unexpected RSLinx Classic termination or availability loss.
Validation and detection
- Confirm whether any deployed RSLinx Classic version is 4.00.01 or prior.
- Map which network zones can reach affected hosts on Port 44818.
- Review operational dependencies that rely on RSLinx Classic availability.
- Check monitoring records for unexplained RSLinx Classic crashes or restarts.
- Compare internal findings against the CISA advisory and Tenable research.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CWE-122: Exact CWE lookup
Use the exact CWE identifier as the starting point before reviewing related ATT&CK behavior. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2018-14821 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Unknown
- CVSS
- Not scored
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS and timeline data
No CVSS vectors or timeline events were available in the normalized CVE source material.
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://ics-cert.us-cert.gov/advisories/ICSA-18-263-02CVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
- https://www.tenable.com/security/research/tra-2018-26CVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.
Heap-based Buffer Overflow
Heap-based Buffer Overflow represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.