$536 and 8 Hours: AI Learns to Attack a Different PLC
Forescout used Claude to port a WAGO PLC exploit for $536 in 8 hours, and an AI-generated payload later permanently bricked the test device.
Forescout researchers used Claude Code with Ghidra, terminal access, and physical hardware to port CVE-2021-31886, a pre-authentication buffer overflow in the Nucleus FTP server, from a WAGO 750-852 PLC to the WAGO 750-831 without source code or debugger access. The final RCE development stage cost $535.74 in API fees over an 8-hour, 32-minute session (2.6k input and 1.3M output tokens) and required heavy researcher guidance. Claude produced working ICMP and UDP beacon exploits in 12 minutes after identifying that normal FTP command completion was overwriting its shellcode, fixed by omitting the CRLF terminator. A follow-up session extending the payloads toward a C2 implant wrote to flash-mapped memory and permanently bricked the PLC, underscoring the risks of autonomous agents operating against physical infrastructure.