PoC Exploits Published for Unpatched RCE Bugs in rConfig

A security researcher has published proof of concept exploits for two remote code execution vulnerabilities in rConfig that haven’t been patched yet.


An open source network device configuration management utility, rConfig provides network engineers with the ability to take snapshots of routing tables, MACs, and running configurations, among others, and can also help improve overall network security.


rConfig is impacted by two remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities, one unauthenticated (CVE-2019-16662) and another authenticated (CVE-2019-16663), penetration tester Mohammad Askar explains.


The issues, Askar says, were found in two different files, namely ajaxServerSettingsChk.php and search.crud.php.


The first of the bugs is an unauthenticated RCE that an attacker could trigger by sending a crafted GET request via the “rootUname” parameter to execute a malicious OS command on the server.


The ajaxServerSettingsChk.php file, Askar explains, saves a GET request called ‘rootUname’ to a specific variable, then concatenates it and saves it to another variable, which is then passed to an exec function.


Thus, an attacker only needs to inject their command and then escape the string at the execution line to ensure the command runs.


The second vulnerability, an authenticated RCE, could be triggered via a crafted GET request containing two parameters, namely “searchTerm” and “catCommand.” The first contains any desired value, while the second contains the payload that will be passed to the exec function.


The researcher has published proof of concept code for both of these vulnerabilities (on GitHub, exploits published unpatched rconfig