This vulnerability allows network-adjacent attackers to execute arbitrary code on affected installations of NETGEAR R6400 and R6700 firmware version 1.0.4.98 routers. Authentication is not required to exploit this vulnerability. The specific flaw exists within the upnpd service, which listens on UDP port 1900 by default. A crafted MX header field in an SSDP message can trigger an overflow of a fixed-length stack-based buffer. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to execute code in the context of root. Was ZDI-CAN-11851.

The update process of the Circle Parental Control Service on various NETGEAR routers allows remote attackers to achieve remote code execution as root via a MitM attack. While the parental controls themselves are not enabled by default on the routers, the Circle update daemon, circled, is enabled by default. This daemon connects to Circle and NETGEAR to obtain version information and updates to the circled daemon and its filtering database. However, database updates from NETGEAR are unsigned and downloaded via cleartext HTTP. As such, an attacker with the ability to perform a MitM attack on the device can respond to circled update requests with a crafted, compressed database file, the extraction of which gives the attacker the ability to overwrite executable files with attacker-controlled code. This affects R6400v2 1.0.4.106, R6700 1.0.2.16, R6700v3 1.0.4.106, R6900 1.0.2.16, R6900P 1.3.2.134, R7000 1.0.11.123, R7000P 1.3.2.134, R7850 1.0.5.68, R7900 1.0.4.38, R8000 1.0.4.68, and RS400 1.5.0.68.