Serial-to-IP Devices Hide Thousands of Old and New Bugs

Forescout researchers discovered 20 new vulnerabilities in popular serial-to-IP converter models from Lantronix and Silex, including five RCE flaws in the EDS5000PS and a critical 9.8 CVSS password-change bypass in the EDS3000PS. Beyond new bugs, scanning firmware stacks revealed an average of 212 known OSS vulnerabilities and 2,255 kernel bugs per device, with exposure to 89 publicly available exploits on average. These devices — which bridge legacy industrial machinery to IP networks — are increasingly targeted in major OT attacks like the 2015 Ukraine power grid hack. Compounding the risk, most devices run outdated Linux kernels without modern binary hardening techniques like ASLR, making exploitation straightforward. The market for these devices is expected to grow, not shrink, over the coming decade.