CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2022-0162

Cleartext Transmission of Sensitive Information

Published: Feb 09, 2022 | Modified: Feb 17, 2022
CVSS 3.x
9.8
CRITICAL
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CVSS 2.x
7.5 HIGH
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu

The vulnerability exists in TP-Link TL-WR841N V11 3.16.9 Build 160325 Rel.62500n wireless router due to transmission of authentication information in cleartextbase64 format. Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could allow a remote attacker to intercept credentials and subsequently perform administrative operations on the affected device through web-based management interface.

Weakness

The product transmits sensitive or security-critical data in cleartext in a communication channel that can be sniffed by unauthorized actors.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Tl-wr841n_firmware Tp-link 3.16.9-build160325_rel.62500n (including) 3.16.9-build160325_rel.62500n (including)

Extended Description

Many communication channels can be “sniffed” (monitored) by adversaries during data transmission. For example, in networking, packets can traverse many intermediary nodes from the source to the destination, whether across the internet, an internal network, the cloud, etc. Some actors might have privileged access to a network interface or any link along the channel, such as a router, but they might not be authorized to collect the underlying data. As a result, network traffic could be sniffed by adversaries, spilling security-critical data. Applicable communication channels are not limited to software products. Applicable channels include hardware-specific technologies such as internal hardware networks and external debug channels, supporting remote JTAG debugging. When mitigations are not applied to combat adversaries within the product’s threat model, this weakness significantly lowers the difficulty of exploitation by such adversaries. When full communications are recorded or logged, such as with a packet dump, an adversary could attempt to obtain the dump long after the transmission has occurred and try to “sniff” the cleartext from the recorded communications in the dump itself.

Potential Mitigations

References