CVE-2024-7953: Unauthorized Project Privilege Escalation

CVE-2024-7953 Overview

CVE-2024-7953 is an improper access control vulnerability [CWE-284] in Rockwell Automation products. The flaw allows an authenticated threat actor to create a project and become its administrator without proper authorization. Once elevated, the attacker can create, modify, and delete their own projects within the affected system.

The vulnerability requires network access and low privileges but no user interaction. It affects the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of project data managed by the affected application.

Critical Impact
An authenticated attacker can bypass authorization controls to gain administrative rights over projects they create, enabling unauthorized data manipulation.

Affected Products

Rockwell Automation product covered by advisory SD1702
Refer to the Rockwell Automation Security Advisory SD1702 for the authoritative product and version list
Deployments exposing the affected service to authenticated network users

Discovery Timeline

2026-09-01 - CVE-2024-7953 published to NVD
2026-09-01 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2024-7953

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability is classified under [CWE-284] Improper Access Control. The affected product fails to correctly enforce authorization checks during project creation. An authenticated user with low privileges can invoke the project-creation workflow and be granted administrator rights over the newly created project. This effectively bypasses the intended role-based access control model.

Because the attacker becomes administrator of the project they create, they can perform full lifecycle operations on it, including modification and deletion. The impact is scoped to projects the attacker creates rather than pre-existing projects owned by other users. However, the ability to spawn attacker-controlled administrative contexts within a shared environment undermines multi-tenant trust boundaries.

Root Cause

The root cause is a missing or insufficient authorization check on the project-creation code path. The application binds the creating user to an administrator role for the new project without validating whether that user is entitled to hold that role. This is a design-level access control flaw rather than an input validation error.

Attack Vector

Exploitation occurs over the network against an authenticated session. The attacker submits a project-creation request through the standard product interface or API. The server processes the request and assigns the attacker the administrator role for the resulting project, granting full control over it. No user interaction from another party is required.

No verified public exploit code is available for CVE-2024-7953. See the Rockwell Automation Security Advisory SD1702 for vendor-specific technical detail.

Detection Methods for CVE-2024-7953

Indicators of Compromise

Unexpected project-creation events initiated by low-privileged accounts
New projects appearing in inventories that map to non-administrative user accounts
Audit log entries where a user is both the creator and administrator of a newly created project without prior role assignment
Bursts of create, modify, and delete operations scoped to a single user's own projects

Detection Strategies

Compare authenticated user roles against project ownership records to surface accounts that hold administrator rights on projects but lack administrative role assignments elsewhere
Alert on API calls to project-creation endpoints originating from accounts outside expected administrator groups
Baseline normal project-creation rates per user and flag statistical outliers

Monitoring Recommendations

Enable and centralize application audit logging for all project lifecycle operations
Forward authentication and authorization events to a SIEM for correlation with user role data
Review vendor-provided logging guidance in advisory SD1702 for product-specific event identifiers

How to Mitigate CVE-2024-7953

Immediate Actions Required

Apply the fixed version identified in the Rockwell Automation Security Advisory SD1702
Restrict network access to the affected application to trusted administrative networks only
Audit existing projects and remove any created by unauthorized accounts
Review and tighten role assignments for all authenticated users

Patch Information

Rockwell Automation has published remediation guidance in advisory SD1702. Consult the advisory for the specific fixed versions and upgrade procedures applicable to your deployment. Apply vendor patches in accordance with change management policies for operational technology environments.

Workarounds

Limit accounts permitted to authenticate to the affected service to only those requiring project management functions
Segment the affected application behind network access controls that restrict reachability to authorized operators
Increase audit logging granularity and review project-creation events daily until patched
Follow vendor-recommended hardening guidance published alongside advisory SD1702

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# Refer to Rockwell Automation Security Advisory SD1702 for
# product-specific configuration and patch application steps:
# https://www.rockwellautomation.com/en-us/trust-center/security-advisories/advisory.SD1702.html