CVE-2023-40146 - CVE House
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Status published Medium CVE-2023-40146

A privilege escalation vulnerability exists in the /bin/login functionality of...

Vulnerability Description

A privilege escalation vulnerability exists in the /bin/login functionality of Peplink Smart Reader v1.2.0 (in QEMU). A specially crafted command line argument can lead to a limited-shell escape and elevated capabilities. An attacker can authenticate with hard-coded credentials and execute unblocked default busybox functionality to trigger this vulnerability.

Impact Analysis

Refer to official advisory for detailed impact metrics.

Remediation

Ensure systems are updated to the latest vendor-supplied patch levels.

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Credits & Attribution

The following person or organization is credited with identifying this vulnerability, as recorded in the NVD database:

  • Discovered by Matt Wiseman of Cisco Talos.

References

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Affected Vendor

Affected Software

Smart Reader
Vulnerable Versions:
v1.2.0 (in QEMU)

Timeline

Official Publish: April 17th, 2024
Last Modified: November 4th, 2025
Added to House: July 22nd, 2026

CVSS Vectors

V3: CVSS:3.1/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Weaknesses (CWE)

CWE-77

MITRE ATT&CK TTPs

T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application
Initial Access
T1059 Command and Scripting Interpreter
Execution
T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation
Privilege Escalation
T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer
Command and Control