Plcnext Technology Starterkit FirmwareOperating system · Phoenixcontact

CVE-2021-34570

HIGH · 7.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2021-09-27
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 2021.0.5 or later.
See remediation →
84/100
Remediation priority · High
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Multiple Phoenix Contact PLCnext control devices in versions prior to 2021.0.5 LTS are prone to a DoS attack through special crafted JSON requests.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-20

The application accepts input without confirming it is well-formed or within expected bounds, so malformed data can push the program into states its author never anticipated. Attackers probe these gaps to trigger crashes, bypass logic, or feed tainted values into more dangerous operations downstream. Remediating it well means validating and normalising every input at the boundary against a strict allow-list — not merely filtering known-bad values.

General guidance for the improper input validation class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Plcnext Technology Starterkit FirmwareOperating system
Affected:< 2021.0.5
Axc F 2152 Starterkit FirmwareOperating system
Affected:< 2021.0.5
Rfc 4072s FirmwareOperating system
Affected:< 2021.0.5
Axc F 3152 FirmwareOperating system
Affected:< 2021.0.5
Axc F 1152 FirmwareOperating system
Affected:< 2021.0.5
Axc F 2152 FirmwareOperating system
Affected:< 2021.0.5

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 2021.0.5 or later
Fixed in 2021.0.5
Vendor patch cert.vde.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

2021.0.5 LTS

  1. Identify the specific PLCnext device model from the affected product list
  2. Check the current firmware version of the device
  3. Access the vendor's official support or download portal for Phoenix Contact PLCnext devices
  4. Download firmware version 2021.0.5 LTS (or a later LTS release if available) for the specific device model
  5. Review the firmware upgrade instructions provided in the product manual or release notes
  6. Apply the firmware update to the device following the vendor's documented upgrade procedure
  7. Verify the firmware version after upgrade to confirm 2021.0.5 or later is installed
  8. Test that the device functions normally after the update

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $1,950. Get the upgrade done

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

Check whether your project pulls in CVE-2021-34570 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.

References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2021-34570 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data