Cisco Small Business RV Series Routers Management Interface Remote Command Execution and Denial of Service Vulnerabilities

Vulnerability

The web-based management interface of Cisco Small Business RV016, RV042, RV042G, RV082, RV320, and RV325 routers contains multiple vulnerabilities due to improper validation of user-supplied input. An authenticated attacker with administrator credentials can send crafted HTTP requests to trigger buffer overflows, leading to arbitrary code execution or device reload. Affected firmware versions are those prior to the fixed releases provided in Cisco's advisory [1].

Exploitation

An attacker must have valid administrator credentials for the target device. With these credentials, the attacker sends specially crafted HTTP requests to the web-based management interface. The improper input validation allows the attacker to overflow buffers, enabling code execution or causing the device to restart. No user interaction beyond the initial authentication is required.

Impact

Successful exploitation allows the attacker to execute arbitrary code as the root user on the underlying operating system, gaining full control of the device. Alternatively, the attacker can cause the device to reload, resulting in a denial of service condition. The impact is complete compromise of confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the affected router.

Mitigation

Cisco has released free software updates to address these vulnerabilities. Customers should upgrade to the fixed firmware versions as specified in Cisco Security Advisory cisco-sa-rv-overflow-ghZP68yj [1]. No workarounds are available; upgrading is the only mitigation. The vulnerabilities are not listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog as of the publication date.