CVE-2019-17621
CRITICALCVE-2019-17621 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) OS Command Injection vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-06-29) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
The UPnP endpoint URL /gena.cgi in the D-Link DIR-859 Wi-Fi router 1.05 and 1.06B01 Beta01 allows an Unauthenticated remote attacker to execute system commands as root, by sending a…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2023-06-29. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2023-07-20.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2019-17621.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2019-17621 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). In the shaded patch-first corner (EPSS 50%+, CVSS 7.0+).
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 395,249 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 50–90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
The UPnP endpoint URL /gena.cgi in the D-Link DIR-859 Wi-Fi router 1.05 and 1.06B01 Beta01 allows an Unauthenticated remote attacker to execute system commands as root, by sending a specially crafted HTTP SUBSCRIBE request to the UPnP service when connecting to the local network.
Affected Products
dir-818lx firmwaredlinkdir-822 firmwaredlinkdir-823 firmwaredlinkdir-859 firmwaredlinkdir-865l firmwaredlinkdir-868l firmwaredlinkResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
The UPnP endpoint URL /gena.cgi in the D-Link DIR-859 Wi-Fi router 1.05 …
The UPnP endpoint URL /gena.cgi in the D-Link DIR-859 Wi-Fi router 1.05 …
The UPnP endpoint URL /gena.cgi in the D-Link DIR-859 Wi-Fi router 1.05 …
The UPnP endpoint URL /gena.cgi in the D-Link DIR-859 Wi-Fi router 1.05 …
The UPnP endpoint URL /gena.cgi in the D-Link DIR-859 Wi-Fi router 1.05 …
The UPnP endpoint URL /gena.cgi in the D-Link DIR-859 Wi-Fi router 1.05 …
The UPnP endpoint URL /gena.cgi in the D-Link DIR-859 Wi-Fi router 1.05 …
Detection & mitigation playbook
VulnerabilityDetect
Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).
Remediation status
No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2019-17621 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Stop passing untrusted input into the interpreter or shell: call the affected binary with an argument array rather than a composed command string, reject anything outside a strict allowlist of expected values, and run the component under an account that cannot reach beyond the work it legitimately does.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2019-17621 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.