CVE-2022-43636

This vulnerability allows network-adjacent attackers to bypass authentication on affected installations of TP-Link TL-WR940N 6_211111 3.20.1(US) routers. Authentication is not required to exploit this vulnerability. The specific flaw exists within the httpd service, which listens on TCP port 80 by default. The issue results from the lack of sufficient randomness in the sequnce numbers used for session managment. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to bypass authentication on the system. Was ZDI-CAN-18334.

Weakness

The product uses insufficiently random numbers or values in a security context that depends on unpredictable numbers.

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

• Use a well-vetted algorithm that is currently considered to be strong by experts in the field, and select well-tested implementations with adequate length seeds.
• In general, if a pseudo-random number generator is not advertised as being cryptographically secure, then it is probably a statistical PRNG and should not be used in security-sensitive contexts.
• Pseudo-random number generators can produce predictable numbers if the generator is known and the seed can be guessed. A 256-bit seed is a good starting point for producing a “random enough” number.

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/112.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/485.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/59.html

References

• https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-22-1614/