Pierluigi Paganini December 25, 2018

Threat actors are attempting to exploit a flaw in Orange LiveBox ADSL modems to retrieve their SSID and WiFi password in plaintext.

Threat actors in the wild are attempting to exploit a vulnerability in LiveBox ADSL modems from Orange, the issue could be triggered to retrieve their SSID and WiFi password in plaintext by simply sending a request to the devices.

The flaw tracked as CVE-2018-20377 is known at least since 2012 when Rick Murray described it in a blog post. 

Experts at Bad Packets observed a scan targeting their honeypot, further investigation allowed them to discover that they were leaking the local network access details.

Bad Packets co-founder Troy Mursch found 19,490 LiveBox systems exposed online using Shodan, these devices exposed the info in plain text via a GET request for /get_getnetworkconf.cgi.

“On Friday, December 21, 2018, our honeypots observed an interesting scan consisting of a GET request for /get_getnetworkconf.cgi. Upon further investigation, we found this traffic was targeting Orange Livebox ADSL modems.” reads the analysis published by the experts.

“A flaw exists in these modems that allow remote unauthenticated users to obtain the device’s SSID and WiFi password.”

Experts also discovered 2,018 not leaking information, and 8,391 not responding to the scans.

The researchers noticed that many of the devices found to be leaking their WiFi password use the same password to access the configuration panel and the wireless network.

Mursch also reported that many exposed devices use default credentials (i.e. admin/admin).

“This allows allow any remote user to easily access the device and maliciously modify the device settings or firmware. In addition, they can obtain the phone number tied to the modem and conduct other serious exploits detailed in this Github repository. ” continues the analysis.

Most of the vulnerable devices were located on the network of Orange Espana (AS12479). The initial scan source was from 81.38.86.204 that is an IP address associated with a Telefonica Spain customer.

The expert pointed out that the source is physically closer to the affected Orange Livebox ADSL modems than say a threat actor in another country. This means that an attacker could connect to the WiFi network (SSID) if it is in the proximity of the vulnerable modems,

The experts shared the details of their analysis with Orange Espana, Orange-CERT and CERT Spain.

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – Orange Livebox ADSL modems, hacking)

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