The company, which was acquired by Siemens in March, is based in Ontario, Canada, and has 10 regional offices in the United States and Europe.

According to an , ROS is primarily used in Ethernet switches and serial-to-Ethernet converters. The company's router and backbone products use a different operating system called ROX that is not affected by this vulnerability, Clarke said.

In the absence of either confirmation or mitigation solutions from RuggedCom, ICS-CERT issued a general recommendation of isolating control systems from business networks and the Internet.

"If remote access is required, employ secure methods, such as Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), recognizing that VPN is only as secure as the connected devices," ICS-CERT said.

"Specialists from Siemens and RuggedCom are investigating this issue and will provide information updates as soon as they become available," Jamie Blakeley, marketing communications coordinator at RuggedCom, said Wednesday via email.