CVE DATABASE / CVE-2017-5521
CVE-2017-5521
NETGEAR Multiple Devices Exposure of Sensitive Information Vulnerability
Confirmed exploited in the wild. Added 2022-09-08.
Federal remediation due 2022-09-29.
Required action: Apply updates per vendor instructions. If the affected device has since entered end-of-life, it should be disconnected if still in use.
Summary
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.
CVSS 3.1 breakdown
| Base score | 8.1 (HIGH) |
| Vector | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
| Attack vector | NETWORK |
| Attack complexity | HIGH |
| Privileges required | NONE |
| User interaction | NONE |
| Scope | UNCHANGED |
| Confidentiality | HIGH |
| Integrity | HIGH |
| Availability | HIGH |
Affected products
Use our free CVE Lookup tool for the latest NVD record, or browse the full CISA KEV catalog.
References
- http://kb.netgear.com/30632/Web-GUI-Password-Recovery-and-Exposure-Security-Vulnerability
- http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/95457
- https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/41205/
- https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2017-5521
Data: NIST NVD + CISA KEV. NVD last modified 2026-04-21. Always verify against the vendor advisory before acting.