CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2021-38539 — Certain NETGEAR devices are affected by privilege escalation

High CVSS 8.8

Certain NETGEAR devices are affected by privilege escalation. This affects D8500 before 1.0.3.44, R6400v2 before 1.0.2.66, R6700 before 1.0.2.6, R6700v3 before 1.0.2.66, R6900 before 1.0.2.4, R6900P before 1.3.2.126, R7000 before 1.0.9.42, R7000P before 1.3.2.126, R7100LG before 1.0.0.50, R7300DST before 1.0.0.70, R7900 before 1.0.3.10, R8300 before 1.0.2.130, and R8500 before 1.0.2.130.

Severity
High
CVSS
8.8 (3.1)
Published
2021-08-11
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
operating-system

Affected products

  • netgear / d8500_firmware
  • netgear / r6400_firmware
  • netgear / r6700_firmware
  • netgear / r6900_firmware
  • netgear / r6900p_firmware
  • netgear / r7000_firmware

Showing 6 representative product identities from 13 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Privilege escalation and unsafe privilege management

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Map service accounts, operating-system identities, roles, capabilities, impersonation, set-user transitions, and administrative helper paths.
  • Determine whether untrusted users or lower-privilege processes can reach the affected transition or modify inputs it trusts.
  • Review file, socket, registry, device, job, container, and cloud-role permissions used before and after privilege changes.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and redesign privileged operations as a minimal, authenticated, allowlisted interface.
  • Drop privileges before processing untrusted input, verify the drop succeeds, and remove unnecessary roles, capabilities, and write permissions.
  • Validate ownership and permissions at time of use and add explicit lower-to-higher privilege boundary tests.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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