CVE-2020-29583
CRITICALCVE-2020-29583 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) CWE-522 vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-11-03) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
Firmware version 4.60 of Zyxel USG devices contains an undocumented account (zyfwp) with an unchangeable password. The password for this account can be found in cleartext in the firmware.…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2021-11-03. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2022-05-03.
- 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-2020-29583.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2020-29583 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 394,803 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the ≥ 90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
Firmware version 4.60 of Zyxel USG devices contains an undocumented account (zyfwp) with an unchangeable password. The password for this account can be found in cleartext in the firmware. This account can be used by someone to login to the ssh server or web interface with admin privileges.
Affected Products
atp100 firmwarezyxelatp100w firmwarezyxelatp200 firmwarezyxelatp500 firmwarezyxelatp700 firmwarezyxelatp800 firmwarezyxelResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
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-2020-29583 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How to detect CVE-2020-29583
A community-maintained Nuclei template exists for this CVE. You can scan for it directly:
nuclei -id cve-2020-29583 -u https://target- Template
- ZyXel USG - Hardcoded Credentials
- Severity
- critical
- Impact
- An attacker can exploit this vulnerability to gain unauthorized access to the affected device, potentially leading to further compromise of the network.
- Remediation
- Update the firmware of the ZyXel USG device to the latest version, which addresses the hardcoded credentials issue.
Template by ProjectDiscovery nuclei-templates (canberbamber), MIT licensed. View the full template. Scan only systems you are authorised to test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-29583 in your dependencies?
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