CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2021-29080

Weak Password Recovery Mechanism for Forgotten Password

Published: Mar 23, 2021 | Modified: Mar 24, 2021
CVSS 3.x
8.1
HIGH
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
CVSS 2.x
4.8 MEDIUM
AV:A/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:N
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu

Certain NETGEAR devices are affected by password reset by an unauthenticated attacker. This affects RBK852 before 3.2.10.11, RBK853 before 3.2.10.11, RBR854 before 3.2.10.11, RBR850 before 3.2.10.11, RBS850 before 3.2.10.11, CBR40 before 2.5.0.10, R7000 before 1.0.11.116, R6900P before 1.3.2.126, R7900 before 1.0.4.38, R7960P before 1.4.1.66, R8000 before 1.0.4.66, R7900P before 1.4.1.66, R8000P before 1.4.1.66, RAX75 before 1.0.3.102, RAX80 before 1.0.3.102, and R7000P before 1.3.2.126.

Weakness

The product contains a mechanism for users to recover or change their passwords without knowing the original password, but the mechanism is weak.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Rbk852_firmware Netgear * *

Extended Description

It is common for an application to have a mechanism that provides a means for a user to gain access to their account in the event they forget their password. Very often the password recovery mechanism is weak, which has the effect of making it more likely that it would be possible for a person other than the legitimate system user to gain access to that user’s account. Weak password recovery schemes completely undermine a strong password authentication scheme. This weakness may be that the security question is too easy to guess or find an answer to (e.g. because the question is too common, or the answers can be found using social media). Or there might be an implementation weakness in the password recovery mechanism code that may for instance trick the system into e-mailing the new password to an e-mail account other than that of the user. There might be no throttling done on the rate of password resets so that a legitimate user can be denied service by an attacker if an attacker tries to recover their password in a rapid succession. The system may send the original password to the user rather than generating a new temporary password. In summary, password recovery functionality, if not carefully designed and implemented can often become the system’s weakest link that can be misused in a way that would allow an attacker to gain unauthorized access to the system.

Potential Mitigations

References