The update process of the Circle Parental Control Service on various NETGEAR routers allows remote malicious users to achieve remote code execution as root via a MitM attack. While the parental controls themselves are not enabled by default on the routers, the Circle update daemon, circled, is enabled by default. This daemon connects to Circle and NETGEAR to obtain version information and updates to the circled daemon and its filtering database. However, database updates from NETGEAR are unsigned and downloaded via cleartext HTTP. As such, an attacker with the ability to perform a MitM attack on the device can respond to circled update requests with a crafted, compressed database file, the extraction of which gives the attacker the ability to overwrite executable files with attacker-controlled code. This affects R6400v2 1.0.4.106, R6700 1.0.2.16, R6700v3 1.0.4.106, R6900 1.0.2.16, R6900P 1.3.2.134, R7000 1.0.11.123, R7000P 1.3.2.134, R7850 1.0.5.68, R7900 1.0.4.38, R8000 1.0.4.68, and RS400 1.5.0.68.
| Vulnerable Product | Search on Vulmon | Subscribe to Product |
|---|---|---|
netgear r6400v2_firmware 1.0.4.106 |
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netgear r6700_firmware 1.0.2.16 |
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netgear r6700v3_firmware 1.0.4.106 |
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netgear r6900_firmware 1.0.2.16 |
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netgear r6900p_firmware 1.3.2.134 |
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netgear r7000_firmware 1.0.11.123 |
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netgear r7000p_firmware 1.3.2.134 |
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netgear r7850_firmware 1.0.5.68 |
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netgear r7900_firmware 1.0.4.38 |
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netgear r8000_firmware 1.0.4.68 |
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netgear rs400_firmware 1.5.0.68 |
A high-severity security bug affecting several Netgear small office/home office (SOHO) routers could allow remote code execution (RCE) via a man-in-the-middle (MiTM) attack.
The bug (CVE-2021-40847) exists in a third-party component that Netgear includes in its firmware, called Circle – it handles the parental controls for the devices, according to researchers at Grimm who discovered the flaw. It rates 8.1 out of 10 on the CVSS 3.0 vulnerability-severity scale.
“Since this code i...
Netgear has fixed a high severity remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability found in the Circle parental control service, which runs with root permissions on almost a dozen modern Small Offices/Home Offices (SOHO) Netgear routers.
While one would expect the attack vector exposed by
security flaw (tracked as
) would be removed after the service is stopped, the Circle update daemon containing the bug is enabled by default and it can be exploited even if the service is disabled...
Vulmon