CVE-2017-5521
NETGEAR Multiple Devices Exposure of Sensitive Information Vulnerability
- High 8.1
- Exploited: added to CISA KEV 8 Sep 2022
- A public exploit reference is listed
Description
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.
Key facts
- Published
- 17 Jan 2017
- Last changed
- 21 Oct 2025
- Assigned by
- mitre
- KEV added
- 8 Sep 2022
- KEV fix due
- 29 Sep 2022
- EPSS
- 89.353% likely to be exploited in the next 30 days, higher than 99.788% of CVEs (scores for 15 Nov 2026)
- SSVC (CISA)
- Exploitation: active; Automatable: no; Technical impact: total
Severity scores
Each score is shown as its source gave it. They are not averaged or merged.
- 8.1CVSS 3.1, Highfrom CISA (ADP container)
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
What to do
- Apply updates per vendor instructions. If the affected device has since entered end-of-life, it should be disconnected if still in use.CISA KEV required action
Historical context and remediation
This reference retains the original CVE publication date. A recent record update does not mean a new attack occurred.
No separately sourced impact summary is available on this page yet. Consult the description, version data and dated exploitation evidence.
Version statuses below come from the CNA. An “unaffected” version is not necessarily a currently supported release or proof of a patch date. EPSS is a dated risk estimate, not a count of historical attacks.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Versions |
|---|---|---|
| n/a | n/a |
|
Timeline
- 17 Jan 2017 Published
- 8 Sep 2022 CVE-2017-5521 added to CISA KEV
- 8 Sep 2022 Added to the CISA KEV catalogue