Administrator password exposure via weak MD5 hashing
Published Feb 22, 2023 · Updated Mar 12, 2025
Weak cryptography in TP-Link TL-WR940N V6 3.19.1 Build 180119 allows remote attackers to recover the administrator password. The router's Basic Authentication implementation hashes the administrator password with deprecated MD5, which lacks resistance to offline guessing. Exploitation requires access to the resulting authentication hash; the published record does not identify how that value becomes observable, and the bounded consequence is administrator credential disclosure.
Summary
What happened
Weak cryptography in TP-Link TL-WR940N V6 3.19.1 Build 180119 allows remote attackers to recover the administrator password. The router's Basic Authentication implementation hashes the administrator password with deprecated MD5, which lacks resistance to offline guessing. Exploitation requires access to the resulting authentication hash; the published record does not identify how that value becomes observable, and the bounded consequence is administrator credential disclosure.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2023-23040
- Published
- Feb 22, 2023
- Updated
- Mar 12, 2025
- Vendor
- Unknown vendor
- Product
- Unknown product
- Classifications
- CWE-327, T1110.002
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Feb 22, 2023CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Mar 12, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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What is affected?
Affected products and versions are unavailable in this record.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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