D-Link DAP-1860 devices before v1.04b03 Beta allow arbitrary remote code execution as root without authentication via shell metacharacters within an HNAPAUTH HTTP header.

D-Link DAP-1860 devices before v1.04b03 Beta allow access to administrator functions without authentication via the HNAPAUTH header timestamp value. In HTTP requests, part of the HNAPAUTH header is the timestamp used to determine the time when the user sent the request. If this value is equal to the value stored in the device's /var/hnap/timestamp file, the request will pass the HNAPAUTH check function.

This vulnerability allows network-adjacent attackers to execute arbitrary code on affected installations of D-Link DAP-1860 1.04B03HOTFIX WiFi extenders. Although authentication is required to exploit this vulnerability, the existing authentication mechanism can be bypassed. The specific flaw exists within the HNAP service, which listens on TCP port 80 by default. When parsing the SOAPAction header, the process does not properly validate a user-supplied string before using it to execute a system call. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to execute code in the context of the device. Was ZDI-CAN-10084.