NetUSB flaw exposes millions of routers to remote code execution

Security researchers have warned of a vulnerability that exposes tens of millions of routers to distant code execution.

SentinelOne researcher Max Van Amerongen discovered the bug when experimenting with router code as part of the Pwn2Personal ethical hacking level of competition. The flaw lies in NetUSB, a software created by software package developer KCodes.

This software, which ships in hundreds of thousands of routers, allows remote computers to access products on a community area network as even though they were being related by means of USB. A regular use circumstance would be connecting to a printer remotely.

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The bug, CVE-2021-45608, is a buffer overflow vulnerability. NetUSB will take a price from the remote Computer system and then adds its own range, using the final result to work out what else is browse from the remote Computer. The application doesn’t validate the preliminary worth, building it probable to produce a larger sized end result than meant.

An attacker could use this to publish much more facts than the program anticipated into the kernel, potentially enabling them to send commands that could execute on the router.

There are some limitations that make the bug difficult to exploit, such as limitations on the measurement of the code sent. Yet, SentinelOne says that it truly is really worth addressing.

“While these limitations make it complicated to produce an exploit for this vulnerability, we consider that it isn’t unachievable and so individuals with Wi-Fi routers may possibly need to look for firmware updates for their router,” it claimed.

Routers affected contain those people from most big makers which include Netgear, TP-Connection, D-Url, and Western Electronic. KCodes verified on December 19 that it had despatched the patch to all sellers, and Netgear unveiled an advisory the subsequent working day.

Router bugs are specially pernicious because they frequently have an affect on dwelling and smaller organization people, targeting devices that people almost never bear in mind to update. That indicates these products can pave the way for malware infections that be part of the routers to botnets or improve DNS configurations, using users to destructive web sites. When bugs target courses employed across quite a few vendors, the goal base can be massive.

2019 noticed a huge UPnProxy vulnerability render tens of millions of routers vulnerable to attack. Additional a short while ago, Sky Broadband was found to have dragged its feet correcting a flaw that uncovered its users’ home networks to hackers.