Account takeover via unchanged default passwords
Published May 27, 2025 · Updated Jul 14, 2025
Use of default passwords in ZKTeco BioTime before 9.0.4 allows remote attackers to access accounts retaining the password 123456. The employee login endpoint authenticates enumerated usernames with the vendor-set initial password without requiring that credential to be changed first. No prior access or user interaction is required, but takeover is limited to accounts whose Self-Password remains unchanged and exposes data available to that account.
Summary
What happened
Use of default passwords in ZKTeco BioTime before 9.0.4 allows remote attackers to access accounts retaining the password 123456. The employee login endpoint authenticates enumerated usernames with the vendor-set initial password without requiring that credential to be changed first. No prior access or user interaction is required, but takeover is limited to accounts whose Self-Password remains unchanged and exposes data available to that account.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2024-13966
- Published
- May 27, 2025
- Updated
- Jul 14, 2025
- Vendor
- ZKTeco
- Product
- BioTime
- Classifications
- CWE-1393, T1078.001
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- May 27, 2025CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Jul 14, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
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- Affected versionversion=*
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
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.
Public exploit references
- biotime_enum.py default-password loginfunctional · demonstrated
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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