Infrastructure Briefing — Eaton HMiSoft VU3 end-of-life leaves file parsing holes on OT workstations
CISA’s ICSA-20-105-01 advisory on Eaton’s discontinued HMiSoft VU3 shows that unmaintained engineering laptops can be crashed or hijacked by malformed project files, pressing operators to accelerate migrations and lock down import workflows.
Executive briefing: Eaton stopped supporting HMiSoft VU3 at the end of 2018, yet many operators still rely on the project editor to maintain legacy HMIs. ICSA-20-105-01 confirms that crafted files can trigger stack-based buffer overflows and out-of-bounds reads, letting an attacker crash or commandeer the engineering workstation that pushes runtime updates.
Mitigation roadmap
- Accelerate migration to XV100/XV300 tooling. Pair the vendor’s replacement guidance with capital plans so plants retire unsupported HMiVU runtimes and project editors that no longer receive security fixes.
- Lock down import workflows. Only allow vetted engineers to open new project files, store trusted packages on signed SMB shares, and scan removable media before it touches the programming laptop.
- Stage clean workstation images. Maintain a hardened gold image for the engineering laptops so they can be rebuilt quickly if a malformed VU3 file corrupts the OS or the local database.
Operational safeguards
- Segment the HMI toolchain. Keep the laptops that run VU3 on an isolated maintenance VLAN with EDR coverage so file exploits cannot pivot into PLCs or historians.
- Collect crash telemetry. Configure logging for parser faults and unexpected process terminations so SOC teams can determine whether a denial-of-service attempt or a targeted overflow occurred.
- Train technicians on end-of-life risk. Emphasize that the vendor no longer backports fixes, so detection and containment have to come from internal monitoring and rapid rebuilds.
Source excerpts
Primary — impact: “Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could crash the device being accessed and may allow remote code execution or information disclosure.”
CISA — ICSA-20-105-01
Primary — vendor mitigation: “Eaton ceased manufacturing the HMiVU on December 31, 2018…It is strongly recommended HMiVU users contact Eaton for technical support and migration assistance to the XV solution.”
CISA — ICSA-20-105-01