CVE-2023-40146: Peplink Smart Reader Firmware

Critical severity, CVSS 9.8. EPSS: 1.4% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

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.

Affected products

• Peplink Smart Reader Firmware: version 1.2.0 only

Published 2024-04-17. Last modified 2026-06-17.