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

Vulnerability

The vulnerabilities affect the web-based management interface of Cisco Small Business RV016, RV042, RV042G, RV082, RV320, and RV325 routers [1]. They arise from improper validation of user-supplied input, allowing an authenticated attacker to send crafted HTTP requests to trigger a buffer overflow or other memory corruption. The exact software versions affected are not enumerated in the advisory, but Cisco has released fixed firmware for each model [1].

Exploitation

An attacker must have valid administrator credentials to access the web-based management interface [1]. No additional network position or user interaction is required beyond authenticated access to the management interface. The attacker sends specially crafted HTTP requests to the vulnerable endpoints, which fail to properly validate input length or content, causing memory corruption [1].

Impact

Successful exploitation enables arbitrary code execution as the root user on the underlying operating system, granting full control of the device [1]. Alternatively, the attacker can cause the device to reload, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) condition that disrupts network operations [1].

Mitigation

Cisco has released free software updates that fix these vulnerabilities [1]. Customers should upgrade to the patched firmware version for their specific router model. No workaround is mentioned, though restricting access to the management interface to trusted administrators can reduce exposure [1].