CISA Details ABB PCM600 Scheduler Privilege Risks
Tech GuruQuick Answer
CISA ICSA-26-274-03 covers ABB PCM600 2.14 and earlier. One flaw concerns Scheduler Service privilege escalation; the other permits project-archive entries to write outside their extraction directory. No fixed release is stated. ABB provides a service-account workaround that reduces privilege-escalation risk without correcting the underlying vulnerability.
Confirm Scope And Apply The Workaround
What to do now: identify the affected PCM600 installation and its Scheduler Service instance, preserve configuration, and apply the ABB service-account workaround under an approved engineering-workstation change. Do not mark the host patched merely because the account changed.
Last verified: 2026-10-02 UTC. Recheck the authoritative advisory and supported distribution channel before changing production.
Scope And Authority
| Product scope | ABB Protection and Control IED Manager PCM600 through version 2.14 |
|---|---|
| Advisory | ICSA-26-274-03 |
| CVEs | CVE-2026-15952, CVE-2026-15953 |
| Authoritative release date | 2026-10-01 (CISA public advisory date; CSAF current release 2026-10-01 06:00 UTC) |
| Authority revision date | Initial public publication; no later material revision stated when verified |
| Affected versions | ABB PCM600 version 2.14 and earlier. |
| Fixed version | No fixed release is stated; configure ABBPCMSchedulerService to use the same Windows account as PCM600 and follow ABB advisories 2NGA003170 and 2NGA003179 |
| CVSS base score | 5.0 / 6.4 (official CVSS v3.1) |
| CVSS severity | Medium |
| Exploitation status | CISA reports no known public exploitation specifically targeting these vulnerabilities; no exploitation claim is inferred. |
What Changed
CVE-2026-15952 involves the Scheduler running as LocalSystem with permissions granted to PCM600 users. CVE-2026-15953 concerns insufficient archive-path validation. Restrict local access and use only trusted project archives while the underlying defects remain unresolved.
What To Validate Now
- Inventory. Locate ABB Protection and Control IED Manager PCM600 through version 2.14 deployments, versions, enabled features, exposure paths, owners, and dependent services.
- Establish applicability. Match the exact product and affected-version statement in ICSA-26-274-03. Do not generalize the finding to another product, service, or release.
- Remediate. Follow ABB advisories 2NGA003170 and 2NGA003179 for the correct ABBPCMSchedulerService instance. Use the same Windows account as PCM600 and ensure it has the required Log on as a service right. With IED authentication enabled, the Scheduler tool must use that same account. This is a mitigation, not a fixed version.
- Validate. Check the service logon account and start state, then run an approved normal scheduled task and verify authorized IED communication. Record any access failure for the engineering owner. Do not broadly grant administrator rights or disable certificate checking to make a failed task pass.
- Retain evidence. Preserve asset and owner identifiers, the applicability decision, before-and-after versions, change approval, installation output, validation results, and any exception or rollback record.
Operational Cautions
Coordinate account changes with protection/control engineering and preserve the prior configuration. CISA reproduces ABB guidance limiting Always trust IED security certificates to secure, trusted communication environments; it is not a general workaround for certificate errors. Treat unknown project archives as untrusted input.
Evidence To Retain
- Exact product, release stream, package or application version, enabled feature, environment, and accountable owner.
- UTC timestamps, authority revision, approved change record, installer or package-manager output, and resulting version.
- Relevant logs and monitoring evidence, test results, exceptions, compensating controls, and rollback decisions.
Related TechGeeks Resources
Authoritative References
Correction policy: If the authority changes affected versions, fixed versions, severity, exploitation information, mitigations, or required action, TechGeeks will update this notice and its verification date.
