Threats / NETGEAR / CVE-2016-1555
CVE-2016-1555
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-06-22
NETGEAR Wireless Access Point (WAP) Devices vulnerability
NETGEAR wireless access points allow unauthenticated attackers to pass unsanitized form input directly to the command-line interface, enabling arbitrary code execution on affected devices.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
An unauthenticated remote attacker can execute arbitrary commands on vulnerable NETGEAR WAP devices through improper input validation in web forms. This vulnerability has been actively exploited in the wild and carries high exploitation probability.
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreExploit available
Fully weaponized — public exploit code is cataloged for this vulnerability.We link the existence of the exploit; we do not host or redistribute payloads.
Reported exploitation
731 independent public reports of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.
Exploited in the wild
Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-03-25).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.98325 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
Affected: NETGEAR, Wireless Access Point (WAP) Devices. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-77 Command Injection — weakness family: Injection.CWE assignment from the public NVD record; the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
02
Who’s exploiting it?
— attribution turns risk into urgencyAttribution not established
No confirmed (advisory-backed) threat-actor attribution is established for this record. Absence of a named actor is not absence of compromise — see Coverage & confidence.
03
Why it matters
— the attack path, told twice: adversary, then board1
Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1
Attacker
I identify a NETGEAR wireless access point exposed on the network and accessible via its web interface without authentication.
Business
Network perimeter security is compromised; the access point becomes an entry point for lateral movement into the organization.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I craft a malicious form submission containing shell metacharacters that bypass input validation and reach the command-line interpreter.
Business
Attacker gains code execution privileges equivalent to the web service process, potentially with root-level access depending on service configuration.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I execute arbitrary commands to establish persistence, exfiltrate credentials, or pivot to connected network segments.
Business
The compromised access point becomes a persistent foothold for network reconnaissance, data theft, or deployment of malware across connected devices.
04
What to do
— defensible action- Remediate per the vendor advisory — confirm the fixed build for your version and verify exposure.1
Say it to the boardA vulnerability with this evidence profile is a defensible budget line, not a backlog ticket — fund the change against the proof above.
05