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CERT Coordination Center

Mediabridge Medialink Wireless-N Broadband Router MWN-WAPR300N contains multiple vulnerabilities

Vulnerability Note VU#630872

Original Release Date: 2015-09-03 | Last Revised: 2016-05-31

Overview

Mediabridge Medialink Wireless-N Broadband Router MWN-WAPR300N, firmware version 5.07.50 and possibly earlier, uses non-unique default credentials and is vulnerable to universal authentication bypass and cross-site request forgery (CSRF).

Description

CWE-255: Credentials Management - CVE-2015-5994

Medialink MWN-WAPR300N by default uses the common admin:admin credentials for the web management interface and uses medialink:password for the wireless network. An attacker within range of a wireless network using default settings can connect and gain privileged access to the web management interface. Additionally, default credentials can be leveraged in remote attacks such as cross-site request forgery.

CWE-784: Reliance on Cookies without Validation and Integrity Checking in a Security Decision - CVE-2015-5995

Authorization in the Medialink MWN-WAPR300N is handled by checking the HTTP Cookie header that is sent by the client. An unauthenticated, local area network (LAN) attacker can modify the cookie header of a request to "Cookie: language-en; admin:language-en" and gain admin access to restricted pages of the web management interface without any knowledge of credentials. This authentication bypass works regardless of whether the administrator account username has been changed from 'admin.'

A nearly identical vulnerability has been reported in the Tenda N3 Wireless N150 Home Router. This likely indicates a supply chain relationship between some Mediabridge and Tenda components.

CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) - CVE-2015-5996

Medialink MWN-WAPR300N routers contain a global cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability. An attacker can perform actions with the same permissions as a victim user, provided the victim has an active session and is induced to trigger the malicious request. Note that in combination with default credentials, an attacker can establish an active session as part of an attack and does not require a victim to be logged in.

The CVSS score below describes CVE-2015-5996.

Additional issues affecting these routers have been disclosed by researcher David Spector.

Impact

A remote, unauthenticated attacker may be able to induce an authenticated user into making an unintentional request to the web server that will be treated as an authentic request. A LAN-based attacker can bypass authentication to take complete control of a vulnerable device.

Solution

The CERT/CC is currently unaware of a practical solution to this problem. Until these vulnerabilities are addressed, users should consider the following workarounds.

Restrict access and use strong passwords

As a general good security practice, only allow trusted hosts to connect to the LAN. Implement strong passwords for WiFi and for the web management interface. While passwords do not provide any additional security against LAN-based attackers due to the authentication bypass vulnerability, passwords can help to prevent blind guessing attempts that would establish sessions for CSRF attacks. LAN hosts should not browse the Internet while the web management interface has an active session in a browser tab.

Vendor Information

630872
 

Mediabridge Affected

Notified:  July 01, 2015 Updated: September 02, 2015

Status

Affected

Vendor Statement

We have not received a statement from the vendor.

Vendor Information

We are not aware of further vendor information regarding this vulnerability.

Addendum

Mediabridge Medialink Wireless-N Broadband Router MWN-WAPR300N firmware version 5.07.50 and possibly earlier is affected.

If you have feedback, comments, or additional information about this vulnerability, please send us email.

Tenda Affected

Updated:  December 07, 2015

Status

Affected

Vendor Statement

We have not received a statement from the vendor.

Vendor Information

We are not aware of further vendor information regarding this vulnerability.

Addendum

A nearly identical cookie authentication vulnerability to CVE-2015-5995 has been reported in the Tenda N3 Wireless N150 Home Router. This likely indicates a supply chain relationship between some Mediabridge and Tenda components.

If you have feedback, comments, or additional information about this vulnerability, please send us email.


CVSS Metrics

Group Score Vector
Base 6.8 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
Temporal 6.1 E:POC/RL:U/RC:C
Environmental 4.6 CDP:ND/TD:M/CR:ND/IR:ND/AR:ND

References

Acknowledgements

These vulnerabilities were reported by Joel Land of the CERT/CC. Thanks to Mandeep Singh Jadon for reporting the cookie authentication vulnerability in the Tenda N3 Wireless N150 Home Router.

This document was written by Joel Land.

Other Information

CVE IDs: CVE-2015-5994, CVE-2015-5995, CVE-2015-5996
Date Public: 2015-09-03
Date First Published: 2015-09-03
Date Last Updated: 2016-05-31 13:32 UTC
Document Revision: 22

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