AsusWRT LAN Unauthenticated Remote Code Execution
Posted on 23 February 2018
The HTTP server in AsusWRT has a flaw where it allows an unauthenticated client to perform a POST in certain cases. This can be combined with another vulnerability in the VPN configuration upload routine that sets NVRAM configuration variables directly from the POST request to enable a special command mode. This command mode can then be abused by sending a UDP packet to infosvr, which is running on port UDP 9999 to directly execute commands as root. This exploit leverages that to start telnetd in a random port, and then connects to it. It has been tested with the RT-AC68U running AsusWRT Version 3.0.0.4.380.7743.