This vulnerability exists in ZKTeco WL20 due to storage of Wi-Fi credentials, configuration data and system data in plaintext within the device firmware. An attacker with physical access could exploit this vulnerability by extracting the firmware and reverse engineer the binary data to access the plaintext sensitive data stored in the targeted device.
Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could allow the attacker to gain unauthorized network access, retrieve and manipulate data on the targeted device.
The product stores sensitive information in cleartext within a resource that might be accessible to another control sphere.
Because the information is stored in cleartext (i.e., unencrypted), attackers could potentially read it. Even if the information is encoded in a way that is not human-readable, certain techniques could determine which encoding is being used, then decode the information. When organizations adopt cloud services, it can be easier for attackers to access the data from anywhere on the Internet. In some systems/environments such as cloud, the use of “double encryption” (at both the software and hardware layer) might be required, and the developer might be solely responsible for both layers, instead of shared responsibility with the administrator of the broader system/environment.