Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) issued a warning on November 13 about six newly reported pre-authentication remote-code-execution flaws in Danfoss AK-SM 800A controllers used in industrial refrigeration systems.
The agency said it had no indication that the flaws were being actively exploited. Its security advisory lists firmware versions through 5.3.2 as affected and says version 5.4.0 is not affected. BSI advised operators not to expose the controllers directly to the internet and to place any required remote access behind a VPN.
The research behind the alert comes from Amsterdam-based security firm Midnight Blue, which said it found six vulnerabilities, including stack-based buffer overflows, while examining the controller firmware. The flaws could allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute code remotely and take control of a controller. The researchers are withholding technical details while coordinated disclosure with Danfoss continues, and the public advisory does not list CVE identifiers.
Midnight Blue’s published analysis describes testing firmware 5.3.2 and does not provide a separate assessment of the 5.4.0 package. Danfoss lists version 5.4.0 as the latest package on its official download page.
The warning follows attacks that disrupted supermarket refrigeration systems in Europe, including refrigeration outages at European supermarkets and subsequent upgrades to affected cooling systems. BSI has not said the six newly disclosed flaws were used in those incidents.
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