CVE-2025-9966 is an improper privilege management vulnerability classified under CWE-269, affecting the Novakon P series industrial devices, specifically version P – V2001.A.c518o2. The flaw allows an attacker who has already compromised one service on the device to escalate their privileges to root level. This escalation means the attacker can gain full administrative control over the device, potentially leading to unauthorized configuration changes, data exfiltration, or disruption of device operations. The vulnerability requires partial authentication and user interaction, and the attack complexity is high, indicating that exploitation is not trivial but feasible under certain conditions. The CVSS 4.0 vector indicates that the attack requires physical or local network access (AV:P), high attack complexity (AC:H), partial authentication (AT:P), high privileges required (PR:H), and user interaction (UI:A). The vulnerability impacts confidentiality, integrity, and availability at a high level, with a CVSS score of 7.3. No public exploits have been reported yet, but the risk remains significant due to the critical nature of industrial control systems. The vulnerability highlights a failure in privilege management, where compromised lower-privilege services can be leveraged to gain root access, a critical security failure in industrial environments.

For European organizations, especially those operating in industrial automation, manufacturing, energy, and critical infrastructure sectors, this vulnerability poses a significant risk. Successful exploitation could allow attackers to take full control of affected Novakon P series devices, leading to potential operational disruptions, safety hazards, and data breaches. The compromise of root privileges could enable attackers to disable security controls, manipulate device behavior, or use the device as a pivot point for lateral movement within the network. Given the high attack complexity and requirement for partial authentication, the threat is more likely to materialize in targeted attacks rather than opportunistic ones. However, the impact on availability and integrity of industrial processes could be severe, potentially causing production downtime or safety incidents. European organizations with interconnected industrial networks or insufficient segmentation are particularly vulnerable. The absence of known exploits in the wild provides a window for proactive mitigation.

1. Implement strict network segmentation to isolate Novakon P series devices from general IT networks and limit access to trusted personnel only. 2. Enforce strong authentication and access controls on all services running on the affected devices to reduce the risk of initial service compromise. 3. Monitor device logs and network traffic for unusual activity indicative of service compromise or privilege escalation attempts. 4. Apply vendor patches or firmware updates as soon as they become available to address the vulnerability directly. 5. Conduct regular security assessments and penetration testing focusing on industrial control systems to identify privilege escalation paths. 6. Limit user interaction requirements by automating secure configurations and reducing manual intervention where possible. 7. Employ intrusion detection systems tailored for industrial environments to detect lateral movement and privilege escalation behaviors. 8. Maintain an incident response plan specific to industrial control systems to quickly contain and remediate any exploitation attempts.