cbcvebase.
CVE-2017-5521
published 2017-01-17

CVE-2017-5521: An issue was discovered on NETGEAR R8500, R8300, R7000, R6400, R7300, R7100LG, R6300v2, WNDR3400v3, WNR3500Lv2, R6250, R6700, R6900, and R8000 devices. They…

PriorityP190high8.1CVSS 3.1
AVNACHPRNUINSUCHIHAH
KEVITWEXPLOIT
CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilitydue 2022-09-29
Exploited in the wild
EPSS
89.29%
99.8th percentile
An issue was discovered on NETGEAR R8500, R8300, R7000, R6400, R7300, R7100LG, R6300v2, WNDR3400v3, WNR3500Lv2, R6250, R6700, R6900, and R8000 devices. They are prone to password disclosure via simple crafted requests to the web management server. The bug is exploitable remotely if the remote management option is set, and can also be exploited given access to the router over LAN or WLAN. When trying to access the web panel, a user is asked to authenticate; if the authentication is canceled and password recovery is not enabled, the user is redirected to a page that exposes a password recovery token. If a user supplies the correct token to the page /passwordrecovered.cgi?id=TOKEN (and password recovery is not enabled), they will receive the admin password for the router. If password recovery is set the exploit will fail, as it will ask the user for the recovery questions that were previously set when enabling that feature. This is persistent (even after disabling the recovery option, the exploit will fail) because the router will ask for the security questions.

Affected

13 ranges
VendorProductVersion rangeFixed in
netgearac1450_firmware
netgeard6220_firmware
netgeard6300_firmware
netgeard6300b_firmware
netgeard6400_firmware
netgeardgn2200bv4_firmware
netgearr6200_firmware
netgearr6300_firmware
netgearvegn2610_firmware
netgearwndr3700v3_firmware
netgearwndr4000_firmware
netgearwndr4500_firmware
netgearwnr1000v3_firmware

Detection & IOCsextracted from sources · hover to see the quote

path/passwordrecovered.cgi?id=TOKEN
path/passwordrecovered.cgi
path/unauth.cgi
  • Detect unauthenticated HTTP GET requests to /unauth.cgi followed by requests to /passwordrecovered.cgi on NETGEAR router management interfaces — this two-step sequence is the exploit chain for CVE-2017-5521.
  • Alert on HTTP requests to /passwordrecovered.cgi containing an 'id=' parameter, especially from unauthenticated sessions or after a cancelled authentication attempt.
  • Monitor for exploitation attempts against NETGEAR router web management panels (R8500, R8300, R7000, R6400, R7300, R7100LG, R6300v2, WNDR3400v3, WNR3500Lv2, R6250, R6700, R6900, R8000) — the exploit is accessible over LAN, WLAN, or WAN if remote management is enabled.
  • A Metasploit auxiliary module (auxiliary/gather/netgear_password_disclosure) exists for this CVE; detect its use via IDS/IPS signatures matching the two-CGI request pattern.
  • ·The exploit fails if password recovery is enabled on the router — the router will instead prompt for previously configured security questions, making the attack ineffective.
  • ·Even after disabling password recovery, the exploit may still fail because the router retains the security question prompt persistently.
  • ·Remote exploitation requires the remote management option to be enabled on the router; LAN/WLAN access is sufficient without it.

CVSS provenance

nvdv3.18.1HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
nvdv2.04.3MEDIUMAV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
vulncheck8.1HIGH
cisa8.1HIGH
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