CVE-2021-39615
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedD-Link DSR-500N version 1.02 contains hard-coded credentials for undocumented user accounts in the '/etc/passwd' file.If an attacker succeeds in recovering the cleartext password of the identified hash value, he will be able to log in via SSH or Telnet and thus gain access to the underlying embedded Linux operating system on the device. Fixed in version 2.12/2. NOTE: This vulnerability only affects products that are no longer supported by the maintainer
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysisA password or key is baked into the source or binary, so anyone who obtains the code obtains the credential. These are trivially found once the software is distributed. Remediation means removing the secret, rotating it, and loading credentials from secured configuration at runtime.
General guidance for the hard-coded credentials class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data= 1.02CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
dbcve · scopedFirmware version 2.12
- 1. Identify the current firmware version on the D-Link DSR-500N by accessing the web management interface or checking via CLI
- 2. Navigate to the official D-Link support page and download the firmware version 2.12 for the DSR-500N model
- 3. Access the DSR-500N web management interface as an administrator
- 4. Locate the firmware upgrade section (typically under Maintenance > Firmware Upgrade or System > Firmware)
- 5. Upload the downloaded firmware version 2.12 file and initiate the upgrade process
- 6. Wait for the upgrade to complete and the device to reboot (do not power off the device during this process)
- 7. Verify the firmware has been updated by checking the system information page shows version 2.12
- 8. Change any default passwords that may have been hard-coded and configure new, strong credentials for administrative access
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
There is no version to upgrade to and no patch to apply. Every affected install stays exposed until the vendor ships a fix — or somebody else builds one.
Free. We build fixes in the order the community asks for them — and we’ll tell you the moment this one lands.
We develop and verify an original fix where the vendor hasn’t, from $3,550. Deployed to your staging first — never straight to production.
Scope it with usSee what else the community needs solved on the solutions-needed board.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2021-39615 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2021-39615 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data