Serious security holes found in one of LG’s older network-attached storage (NAS) products allow hackers to remotely access devices, researchers warned on Thursday.
Gergely Eberhardt of Hungary-based research company SEARCH-LAB analyzed LG’s N1A1 NAS product and discovered multiple vulnerabilities that can be leveraged to gain admin access to the device.
The product is currently listed as discontinued on LG’s website, but the researcher told SecurityWeek that there are roughly 5,000 vulnerable devices accessible directly from the Internet. While most of them are located in South Korea, there are hundreds of devices deployed in the United States, Germany and the Netherlands.
Many of the issues identified by the expert are related to FamilyCast, a feature that allows users to easily access and share videos, photos, music and other content.
One of the problems found by Eberhardt is related to the fact that most of the PHP scripts used by the FamilyCast service don’t perform any session checking. While FamilyCast requires users to log in to the service, this flaw allows files shared via FamilyCast to be accessed remotely without authentication. Furthermore, this allows other vulnerabilities found on the system to be exploited by an unauthenticated attacker.
Eberhardt also found that FamilyCast is plagued by at least one SQL injection vulnerability that can be leveraged to gain access to usernames and password hashes.
The researcher also discovered a hidden uploader in FamilyCast that can be used to upload or download any file from the system.
Another serious flaw is related to the storage of sensitive information, including password hashes, in log files. While an attacker would normally need to crack the hash in order to obtain the password, the expert discovered that event parameters are also logged and the parameter associated with the NAS device’s login process (which is different from the FamilyCast login process) can be used directly to access the system.
SEARCH-LAB has published a video showing how the vulnerabilities can be exploited to remotely gain admin access to the device:
The vulnerabilities were discovered in March 2015, but SEARCH-LAB initially encountered difficulties in notifying the vendor. LG patched the N1A1 flaws in early October 2015 with the release of firmware version 10124.
SEARCH-LAB has waited until now to disclose the details of the vulnerabilities to give users time to install the firmware update. The company recommends avoiding exposure of the NAS device’s web interface on the Internet.
Related: Seagate Business NAS Flaws Allow Remote Code Execution
Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.
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