Amcrest IPM-721S Firmware Amcrest IPC-AWXX Eng N V2.520.AC00.18.R.20170629: security vulnerability (CVE-2017-8229)
Published Sources: CVE.org
What is affected, what to do
Amcrest IPM-721S V2.420.AC00.16.R.20160909 devices allow an unauthenticated attacker to download the administrative credentials. If the firmware version V2.420.AC00.16.R 9/9/2016 is dissected using binwalk tool, one obtains a _user-x.squashfs.img.extracted archive which contains the filesystem set up on the device that many of the binaries in the /usr folder.
An exploit is publicly available. The available sources name no fixed version. Check the vendor guidance in the references below.
- Affected
- Amcrest IPM-721S Firmware Amcrest IPC-AWXX Eng N V2.520.AC00.18.R.20170629
lte *..2.420.ac00.16.r.20160909
- Amcrest IPM-721S Firmware Amcrest IPC-AWXX Eng N V2.520.AC00.18.R.20170629
Not sure whether and how you are affected? Ask a question about this vulnerability
Metrics
9.8
Priority
XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.
Source: NVD, CVSS v3
9.8
CVSS v3
Severity Critical on the scale from 0 to 10.
Source: CVE.org
74.2 %
EPSS score
High — model estimates ≥ 50% chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days.
Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 99.49
Show all metrics
- Severity
- Critical
Priority (0–325)
The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?
Read in glossary- 128.19 Methodology
Exploit maturity
An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.
Read in glossary- PoC (publicly reported)
XIEM Effective CVSS
XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.
Read in glossary- 9.8 Methodology
CVSS v3
CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.
Read in glossary- 9.8
EPSS score
The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.
Read in glossary- 74.2 %
- High — model estimates ≥ 50% chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days.
EPSS percentile
The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.
Read in glossary- 99.49
- Critical — this CVE ranks in the top fifth of all CVEs scored today (rank ≥ 80%).
KEV status
The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.
Read in glossary- —
- Published
Detection rules
No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.
Classification under NIS2 and CRA
Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.
NIS2
NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.
Read in glossary- High technical severity: assess and remediate the vulnerability in vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2 and document the decision.
CRA
The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.
Read in glossary- From 11.12.2027, Annex I Part II CRA requires manufacturers of affected products with digital elements to handle vulnerabilities without delay and provide security updates.
ISO/IEC 27001
ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.
Read in glossary- Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.
Description
Amcrest IPM-721S V2.420.AC00.16.R.20160909 devices allow an unauthenticated attacker to download the administrative credentials. If the firmware version V2.420.AC00.16.R 9/9/2016 is dissected using binwalk tool, one obtains a _user-x.squashfs.img.extracted archive which contains the filesystem set up on the device that many of the binaries in the /usr folder. The binary "sonia" is the one that has the vulnerable function that sets up the default credentials on the device. If one opens this binary in IDA-pro one will notice that this follows a ARM little endian format. The function sub_436D6 in IDA pro is identified to be setting up the configuration for the device. If one scrolls to the address 0x000437C2 then one can see that /current_config is being set as an ALIAS for /mnt/mtd/Config folder on the device. If one TELNETs into the device and navigates to /mnt/mtd/Config folder, one can observe that it contains various files such as Account1, Account2, SHAACcount1, etc. This means that if one navigates to http://[IPofcamera]/current_config/Sha1Account1 then one should be able to view the content of the files. The security researchers assumed that this was only possible only after authentication to the device. However, when unauthenticated access tests were performed for the same URL as provided above, it was observed that the device file could be downloaded without any authentication.
Source: NVD (NIST), cvelistv5
Vendors and products
Affected operating systems
| Other | amcrest | ipm-721s_firmware | — |
Public exploit references
Publicly reported proof-of-concepts, exploit modules and detection templates for this vulnerability. NEOSEC links to the original sources only and does not provide any exploit code.
| Reference tagged as exploit | github.com (opens in a new tab) | PoC (publicly reported)reported, not verified | — |
| Packet Storm | Amcrest IPM 721S Credential Disclosure Privilege Escalation (opens in a new tab)packetstormsecurity.com | PoC (publicly reported)reported, not verified | — |
References & sources
- seclists.org20190609 Newly releases IoT security issuesMailing list, x_refsource_BUGTRAQ, Mailing list, Third-party advisory
- packetstormsecurity.comfiles/153224/Amcrest-IPM-721S-Credential-Disclosure-Privilege-E…x_refsource_MISC, Third-party advisory, Vulnerability database
- github.comethanhunnt/IoT_vulnerabilities/blob/master/Amcrest_sec_issues.p…x_refsource_MISC, Exploit, Third-party advisory
Embed badge
Show the severity and KEV status of this vulnerability on your site – with a link back here. The image is updated hourly.
<a href="https://intel.neosec.eu/en/cve/CVE-2017-8229"><img src="https://intel.neosec.eu/badge/cve/CVE-2017-8229.svg?lang=en" alt="CVE-2017-8229 – NEOSEC Intel" height="20"></a>