CVE Alert: CVE-2025-11525 – Tenda – AC7

Risk verdict

High likelihood of remote code execution on exposed devices due to a publicly disclosed exploit; urgent patching is advised when a firmware fix is available.

Why this matters

Impact is catastrophic on the device itself (full confidentiality, integrity and availability loss) and could enable network‑level access or lateral movement to adjacent assets. The public availability of an exploit raises the chance of rapid automated exploitation in real-world deployments.

Most likely attack path

Attacker can reach the device over the network without user interaction and with only low privileges required, making probing and exploitation straightforward if UPnP is accessible externally. The memory corruption yields high impact and the action is constrained only by network reachability and existence of the vulnerable service, enabling rapid compromise and potential reload/restart of the device.

Who is most exposed

Consumer and small business gateways with UPnP enabled are at greatest risk, especially in home or small office networks where devices may sit behind NAT yet remain reachable from the LAN or WAN edge.

Detection ideas

• Look for inbound requests to /goform/SetUpnpCfg with anomalously long upnpEn values.
• Monitor for device reboots or crash events following UPnP traffic bursts.
• Alert on repeated remote attempts to configure UPnP settings from external sources.
• Correlate spikes in UPnP traffic with abnormal config changes.
• Verify firmware versions against vendor advisories.

Mitigation and prioritisation

• Apply vendor firmware patch as soon as released; verify integrity before deployment.
• If patches are unavailable, disable UPnP on WAN-facing interfaces and restrict UPnP to trusted networks.
• Enforce strict WAN access controls and monitor UPnP-related activity.
• Schedule patching during a maintenance window; test device functionality post‑update.
• If KEV or EPSS data becomes available indicating active exploitation, elevate to priority 1.