CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2023-46889

Cleartext Transmission of Sensitive Information

Published: Jan 23, 2024 | Modified: Jan 31, 2024
CVSS 3.x
5.7
MEDIUM
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
CVSS 2.x
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu

Meross MSH30Q 4.5.23 is vulnerable to Cleartext Transmission of Sensitive Information. During the device setup phase, the MSH30Q creates an unprotected Wi-Fi access point. In this phase, MSH30Q needs to connect to the Internet through a Wi-Fi router. This is why MSH30Q asks for the Wi-Fi network name (SSID) and the Wi-Fi network password. When the user enters the password, the transmission of the Wi-Fi password and name between the MSH30Q and mobile application is observed in the Wi-Fi network. Although the Wi-Fi password is encrypted, a part of the decryption algorithm is public so we complemented the missing parts to decrypt it.

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
Msh30q_firmware Meross 4.5.23 (including) 4.5.23 (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