Cybersecurity professionals consider CVE-2017-5521 an immediate threat requiring urgent mitigation.
Status: Modified
Last updated: 🕘 04 Feb 2025, 21:15 UTC
Originally published on: 🕤 17 Jan 2017, 09:59 UTC
Time between publication and last update: 2940 days
CVSS Release: version 3
nvd@nist.gov
Primary
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
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 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.
The exploitability of CVE-2017-5521 depends on two key factors: attack complexity (the level of effort required to execute an exploit) and privileges required (the access level an attacker needs).
CVE-2017-5521 presents a challenge to exploit due to its high attack complexity, but the absence of privilege requirements still makes it a viable target for skilled attackers. A thorough security review is advised.
A lower complexity and fewer privilege requirements make exploitation easier. Security teams should evaluate these aspects to determine the urgency of mitigation strategies, such as patch management and access control policies.
Attack Complexity (AC) measures the difficulty in executing an exploit. A high AC means that specific conditions must be met, making an attack more challenging, while a low AC means the vulnerability can be exploited with minimal effort.
Privileges Required (PR) determine the level of system access necessary for an attack. Vulnerabilities requiring no privileges are more accessible to attackers, whereas high privilege requirements limit exploitation to authorized users with elevated access.
Above is the CVSS Sub-score Breakdown for CVE-2017-5521, illustrating how Base, Impact, and Exploitability factors combine to form the overall severity rating. A higher sub-score typically indicates a more severe or easier-to-exploit vulnerability.
Below is the Impact Analysis for CVE-2017-5521, showing how Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability might be affected if the vulnerability is exploited. Higher values usually signal greater potential damage.
The EPSS score estimates the probability that this vulnerability will be exploited in the near future.
EPSS Score: 97.222% (probability of exploit)
EPSS Percentile: 99.92%
(lower percentile = lower relative risk)
This vulnerability is less risky than approximately 0.0799999999999983% of others.
NVD-CWE-noinfo
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