CVE-2023-40146 — A privilege escalation vulnerability exists in the /bin/login functionality of P

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 a

01What is this vulnerability?

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.

02Affected products

Vendor	Product	Versions
Peplink	Smart Reader	v1.2.0 (in QEMU)

03Active exploitation status

Not currently listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. EPSS is the best forward-looking signal — see the EPSS row above.

04Recommended remediation

• Patch to a fixed version listed in the vendor advisory (see references below).
• Mitigate with WAF rules, network egress filters, or feature flags where the patch is not yet available.
• Hunt historical logs for exploitation indicators — see Detection signatures below.

05Technical details

For the full vendor write-up, exploit chains, and reference implementations, see the references list in section 09.

06Detection signatures

Open the Sigma generator with a pre-filled prompt for this CVE to draft a starting detection in your stack of choice:

Open in Sigma generator →

07Related CVEs

08Timeline

• Published: 2024-04-17T12:55:47.083Z
• Last modified: 2025-11-04T18:16:38.419Z

09References

• talosintelligence.com — https://talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2023-1868
• forum.peplink.com — https://forum.peplink.com/t/peplink-security-advisory-smart-reader-firmware-1-2-…