What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2023-40478: NETGEAR RAX30 Telnet CLI passwd Stack-based Buffer Overflow Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

• Severity: medium (CVSS 6.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.8% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2024-05-03 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-121

Description

NETGEAR RAX30 Telnet CLI passwd Stack-based Buffer Overflow Remote Code Execution Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows network-adjacent attackers to execute arbitrary code on affected installations of NETGEAR RAX30 routers. Although authentication is required to exploit this vulnerability, the existing authentication mechanism can be bypassed. The specific flaw exists within the telnet CLI service, which listens on TCP port 23. The issue results from the lack of proper validation of the length of user-supplied data prior to copying it to a fixed-length stack-based buffer. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to execute code in the context of root. Was ZDI-CAN-20009.

Affected products

• NETGEAR RAX30: before 1.0.10.94 — fixed in 1.0.10.94

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: NETGEAR RAX30 1.0.10.94. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://kb.netgear.com/000065649/Security-Advisory-for-Post-authentication-Buffer-Overflow-on-the-RAX30-PSV-2023-0002
• https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-23-1163/
• https://kb.netgear.com/000065649/Security-Advisory-for-Post-authentication-Buffer-Overflow-on-the-RAX30-PSV-2023-0002
• https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-23-1163/

Get alerted when CVE-2023-40478 or the next vulnerability affects your stack