CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2019-20656

Use of Hard-coded Credentials

Published: Apr 15, 2020 | Modified: Apr 22, 2020
CVSS 3.x
8.8
HIGH
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CVSS 2.x
3.3 LOW
AV:A/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu

Certain NETGEAR devices are affected by a hardcoded password. This affects D6200 before 1.1.00.36, D7000 before 1.0.1.74, PR2000 before 1.0.0.30, R6020 before 1.0.0.42, R6080 before 1.0.0.42, R6050 before 1.0.1.24, JR6150 before 1.0.1.24, R6120 before 1.0.0.48, R6220 before 1.1.0.86, R6230 before 1.1.0.86, R6260 before 1.1.0.64, R6700v2 before 1.2.0.62, R6800 before 1.2.0.62, R6900v2 before 1.2.0.62, and WNR2020 before 1.1.0.62.

Weakness

The product contains hard-coded credentials, such as a password or cryptographic key, which it uses for its own inbound authentication, outbound communication to external components, or encryption of internal data.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
D6200_firmware Netgear * 1.1.00.36 (excluding)

Extended Description

Hard-coded credentials typically create a significant hole that allows an attacker to bypass the authentication that has been configured by the product administrator. This hole might be difficult for the system administrator to detect. Even if detected, it can be difficult to fix, so the administrator may be forced into disabling the product entirely. There are two main variations:

In the Inbound variant, a default administration account is created, and a simple password is hard-coded into the product and associated with that account. This hard-coded password is the same for each installation of the product, and it usually cannot be changed or disabled by system administrators without manually modifying the program, or otherwise patching the product. If the password is ever discovered or published (a common occurrence on the Internet), then anybody with knowledge of this password can access the product. Finally, since all installations of the product will have the same password, even across different organizations, this enables massive attacks such as worms to take place. The Outbound variant applies to front-end systems that authenticate with a back-end service. The back-end service may require a fixed password which can be easily discovered. The programmer may simply hard-code those back-end credentials into the front-end product. Any user of that program may be able to extract the password. Client-side systems with hard-coded passwords pose even more of a threat, since the extraction of a password from a binary is usually very simple.

Potential Mitigations

  • For outbound authentication: store passwords, keys, and other credentials outside of the code in a strongly-protected, encrypted configuration file or database that is protected from access by all outsiders, including other local users on the same system. Properly protect the key (CWE-320). If you cannot use encryption to protect the file, then make sure that the permissions are as restrictive as possible [REF-7].
  • In Windows environments, the Encrypted File System (EFS) may provide some protection.
  • For inbound authentication using passwords: apply strong one-way hashes to passwords and store those hashes in a configuration file or database with appropriate access control. That way, theft of the file/database still requires the attacker to try to crack the password. When handling an incoming password during authentication, take the hash of the password and compare it to the saved hash.
  • Use randomly assigned salts for each separate hash that is generated. This increases the amount of computation that an attacker needs to conduct a brute-force attack, possibly limiting the effectiveness of the rainbow table method.
  • For front-end to back-end connections: Three solutions are possible, although none are complete.

References