Skip to content

CVE-2017-5521

Exposure of Sensitive Information: Is CVE-2017-5521 real, exploitable, or a false positive? Here's the community verdict.

signals

public sources

Exploited in wild
Yes
CISA KEV
Public exploit
Exploit-DB
Metasploit/EDB/PoC
Base severity
8.1 High
CVSS
Exploitation prob.
89%
FIRST EPSS
Weakness
CWE-200 · Exposure of Sensitive Information
CWE

Confirmed exploited in the wild. Patch this first, regardless of the base score.

public exploits

links to sources — we don’t host code

A working exploit is publicly available from a maintained source. Treat this as higher urgency and verify your exposure.

baseline read

auto · not a community verdict

Real — exploited in the wild

CISA confirms active exploitation. Treat scanner hits as true positives unless your specific version or config is unaffected.

Based on CISA KEV

Confirm or dispute →
Affected:Netgear

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

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.

Published

Embed this verdict
TruePositive verdict for CVE-2017-5521
Markdown
[![TruePositive verdict](https://www.truepositive.app/cve/CVE-2017-5521/badge.svg)](https://www.truepositive.app/cve/CVE-2017-5521)
HTML
<a href="https://www.truepositive.app/cve/CVE-2017-5521"><img src="https://www.truepositive.app/cve/CVE-2017-5521/badge.svg" alt="TruePositive verdict for CVE-2017-5521"></a>

Live badge that updates automatically as the community verdict changes.

Community ground truth

Be the first practitioner to weigh in

So far this is only TruePositive's editorial baseline from public sources. Add your real-world verdict below — it becomes the signal the next person triaging this relies on.

🥇 The first 50 practitioners to contribute earn a Founding Contributor badge.

In your experience, is this finding real and exploitable?

awaiting field verdicts
Real, but not a risk here
Not a real issue

Curated baseline: TruePositive's read from public sources is Real & exploitable — a starting point, not a community verdict.

No account needed. Anonymous verdicts post as an unverified signal. Log in to make yours verified and earn reputation.

Field notes & remediation

Verdicts are the quick signal. Notes are the evidence and fixes behind them.

  • 0
    Field note · TruePositive EditorialCurated

    NETGEAR Multiple Devices Exposure of Sensitive Information Vulnerability — Multiple NETGEAR devices are prone to admin password disclosure via simple crafted requests to the web management server. Listed in the CISA KEV catalog (added 2022-09-08) — confirmed exploited in the wild, not theoretical. FIRST EPSS puts the chance of exploitation in the next 30 days at ~89%. Treat it as real and prioritize remediation over triage.

  • 0
    Remediation · TruePositive EditorialCurated

    Required action for NETGEAR Multiple Devices: Apply updates per vendor instructions. If the affected device has since entered end-of-life, it should be disconnected if still in use. CISA set a federal remediation due date of 2022-09-29. After patching, verify the vulnerable path is no longer reachable before closing the finding.

Add a field note or remediationoptional
Note type

What are you adding?

Markdown supported · minimum 20 characters.

Same weakness: CWE-200 · Exposure of Sensitive Information.