CVE-2017-5521: NETGEAR Multiple Devices Exposure of Sensitive Information Vulnerability

CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities

Name

NETGEAR Multiple Devices Exposure of Sensitive Information Vulnerability

Vendor

NETGEAR

Product

Multiple Devices

Added to the catalog

2022-09-08

Due date for US federal agencies

2022-09-29

Weaknesses

CWE-200

Catalog version

2026.10.30

Multiple NETGEAR devices are prone to admin password disclosure via simple crafted requests to the web management server.

Required action (CISA)

Apply updates per vendor instructions. If the affected device has since entered end-of-life, it should be disconnected if still in use.

Ransomware use: CISA does not mark known use of this vulnerability in ransomware campaigns.

Links in CISA's notes

• https://kb.netgear.com/30632/Web-GUI-Password-Recovery-and-Exposure-Security-Vulnerability
• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2017-5521

Read on 2026-11-02T23:39:54.475Z under licence cisa-kev-cc0@b0067899 from https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/feeds/known_exploited_vulnerabilities.json

NVD analysis

Status

Analyzed

Published

2017-01-17T09:59:00.333

Last modified

2026-06-17T01:20:39.923

Weaknesses

NVD-CWE-noinfo

An issue was discovered on NETGEAR R8500, R8300, R7000, R6400, R7300, R7100LG, R6300v2, WNDR3400v3, WNR3500Lv2, R6250, R6700, R6900, and R8000 devices. They are prone to password disclosure via simple crafted requests to the web management server. The bug is exploitable remotely if the remote management option is set, and can also be exploited given access to the router over LAN or WLAN. When trying to access the web panel, a user is asked to authenticate; if the authentication is canceled and password recovery is not enabled, the user is redirected to a page that exposes a password recovery token. If a user supplies the correct token to the page /passwordrecovered.cgi?id=TOKEN (and password recovery is not enabled), they will receive the admin password for the router. If password recovery is set the exploit will fail, as it will ask the user for the recovery questions that were previously set when enabling that feature. This is persistent (even after disabling the recovery option, the exploit will fail) because the router will ask for the security questions.

References

• http://kb.netgear.com/30632/Web-GUI-Password-Recovery-and-Exposure-Security-Vulnerability (Vendor Advisory)
• http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/95457 (Broken Link, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry)
• https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/41205/ (Exploit, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry)
• http://kb.netgear.com/30632/Web-GUI-Password-Recovery-and-Exposure-Security-Vulnerability (Vendor Advisory)
• http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/95457 (Broken Link, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry)
• https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/41205/ (Exploit, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry)
• https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2017-5521 (US Government Resource)

This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.

Read on 2026-11-02T23:41:35.381Z under licence nvd-api-terms-of-use@ff2a5288 from https://services.nvd.nist.gov/rest/json/cves/2.0?cveId=CVE-2017-5521

CVE record

Assigner

mitre

State

PUBLISHED

Published

2017-01-17T09:22:00.000Z

Updated

2025-10-21T23:55:47.051Z

Problem types

n/a

An issue was discovered on NETGEAR R8500, R8300, R7000, R6400, R7300, R7100LG, R6300v2, WNDR3400v3, WNR3500Lv2, R6250, R6700, R6900, and R8000 devices. They are prone to password disclosure via simple crafted requests to the web management server. The bug is exploitable remotely if the remote management option is set, and can also be exploited given access to the router over LAN or WLAN. When trying to access the web panel, a user is asked to authenticate; if the authentication is canceled and password recovery is not enabled, the user is redirected to a page that exposes a password recovery token. If a user supplies the correct token to the page /passwordrecovered.cgi?id=TOKEN (and password recovery is not enabled), they will receive the admin password for the router. If password recovery is set the exploit will fail, as it will ask the user for the recovery questions that were previously set when enabling that feature. This is persistent (even after disabling the recovery option, the exploit will fail) because the router will ask for the security questions.

References

• 41205
• http://kb.netgear.com/30632/Web-GUI-Password-Recovery-and-Exposure-Security-Vulnerability
• 95457

Read on 2026-11-03T00:35:12.463Z under licence cve-terms-of-use@81bfa2f3 from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/main/cves/2017/5xxx/CVE-2017-5521.json