Overview
- Forescout Vedere Labs used Anthropic’s Claude to port a pre‑authentication remote code execution exploit for CVE‑2021‑31886 from a WAGO 750‑852 to a WAGO 750‑831 and achieved attacker‑supplied ARM shellcode execution on live hardware.
- The final RCE stage required heavy human steering, a model switch from Claude Sonnet 4.6 to Opus 4.6, and cost $535.74 in API usage across an 8 hour, 32 minute session, showing the process still needs specialist time and money.
- Claude solved a device‑specific problem where normal FTP processing zeroed the attacker buffer by omitting the CRLF terminator so the shellcode survived long enough to run, and then produced two working network payloads within 12 minutes.
- A follow‑up session that tried to develop a command‑and‑control implant wrote to flash‑mapped memory and permanently bricked the PLC, illustrating real physical risk from AI‑guided testing on operational equipment.
- Authorities and vendors have issued mitigations—CERT@VDE urges disabling or blocking FTP on port 21, enforcing network segmentation and monitoring—and many affected WAGO controllers currently have no available firmware updates, leaving exposed OT assets at continued risk.