An issue was discovered on NETGEAR R8500, R8300, R7000, R6400, R7300, R7100LG, R6300v2, WNDR3400v3, WNR3500Lv2, R6250, R6700, R6900, and R8…

published 2017-01-17 9y ago modified 2026-06-17 4mo ago also EUVD-2017-14625

cvss: 8.1; version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev: Exploited; added 2022-09-08
epss: 89.4%; EPSS 89.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 99.7%
public exploits: 2; Metasploit and Exploit-DB, plus a Nuclei check

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.

Patch / fix

cisa 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.

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Timeline

2017-01-17 Published
2017-01-30 First public exploit (EDB-41205)
2022-09-08 Added to CISA KEV
2022-09-29 CISA patch deadline
2025-02-04 CISA SSVC: exploitation active

Known exploited

Added: 4y ago (2022-09-08)
Patch by: 2022-09-29 (4y ago)
Ransomware: Not known
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.
Vendor, product: NETGEAR, Multiple Devices
CISA name: NETGEAR Multiple Devices Exposure of Sensitive Information Vulnerability

CISA SSVC

Exploitation: Active, exploited in the wild
Automatable: no
Technical impact: total
Assessed: last yr. (2025-02-04)

Exploit prediction

89.35% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 99.7% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

Metasploit auxiliary/gather/netgear_password_disclosure NETGEAR Administrator Password Disclosure metasploit auxiliary, normal rank
EDB-41205 Netgear Routers - Password Disclosure webapps, 2017-01-30
Nuclei template NETGEAR Routers - Authentication Bypass nuclei detection template

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CISA ADP	3.1	8.1	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD	3.1	8.1	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CNA	3.1	8.1	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD	2.0	4.3	AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N

References

exploit-db.com /exploits/41205/
exploit, third-party-advisory, vdb-entry
kb.netgear.com /30632/Web-GUI-Password-Recovery-and-Exposure-Security-Vulnerability
vendor-advisory
securityfocus.com /bid/95457
vdb-entry, broken-link, third-party-advisory
cisa.gov /known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2017-5521
government-resource, us-government-resource

Sources

CVE List CVE-2017-5521
NVD CVE-2017-5521

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