CVE-2023-40146

Severity: critical (CVSS 9.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 1.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2024-04-17 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-77

Description

A privilege escalation vulnerability exists in the /bin/login functionality of Peplink Smart Reader v1.2.0 (in QEMU). A specially crafted command line argument can lead to a limited-shell escape and elevated capabilities. An attacker can authenticate with hard-coded credentials and execute unblocked default busybox functionality to trigger this vulnerability.

Affected products

Peplink Smart Reader: 1.2.0

References

https://forum.peplink.com/t/peplink-security-advisory-smart-reader-firmware-1-2-0-cve-2023-43491-cve-2023-45209-cve-2023-39367-cve-2023-45744-cve-2023-40146/47256
https://talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2023-1868
https://forum.peplink.com/t/peplink-security-advisory-smart-reader-firmware-1-2-0-cve-2023-43491-cve-2023-45209-cve-2023-39367-cve-2023-45744-cve-2023-40146/47256
https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20240822-0008/
https://talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2023-1868
https://www.talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2023-1868

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