CVE-2020-8479: Abb 800xa System

Critical severity, CVSS 9.8. EPSS: 2.3% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

For the Central Licensing Server component used in ABB products ABB Ability™ System 800xA and related system extensions versions 5.1, 6.0 and 6.1, Compact HMI versions 5.1 and 6.0, Control Builder Safe 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0, Symphony Plus -S+ Operations 3.0 to 3.2 Symphony Plus -S+ Engineering 1.1 to 2.2, Composer Harmony 5.1, 6.0 and 6.1, Melody Composer 5.3, 6.1/6.2 and SPE for Melody 1.0SPx (Composer 6.3), Harmony OPC Server (HAOPC) Standalone 6.0, 6.1 and 7.0, ABB Ability™ System 800xA/ Advant® OCS Control Builder A 1.3 and 1.4, Advant® OCS AC100 OPC Server 5.1, 6.0 and 6.1, Composer CTK 6.1 and 6.2, AdvaBuild 3.7 SP1 and SP2, OPCServer for MOD 300 (non-800xA) 1.4, OPC Data Link 2.1 and 2.2, Knowledge Manager 8.0, 9.0 and 9.1, Manufacturing Operations Management 1812 and 1909, ABB AbilityTM SCADAvantage versions 5.1 to 5.6.5. an XML External Entity Injection vulnerability exists that allows an attacker to read or call arbitrary files from the license server and/or from the network and also block the license handling.

Affected products

• Abb 800xa System: version 5.1 only; version 6.0 only; version 6.0.1 only; version 6.0.3 only; version 6.1 only
• Abb Compact HMI: version 5.1 only; version 6.0.1-1 only; version 6.0.3-2 only
• Abb Control Builder Safe: version 1.0 only; version 1.1 only; version 2.0 only

Published 2020-04-29. Last modified 2026-06-17.