CriticalCVE-2018-14933

    NUUO NVRmini Devices OS Command Injection Vulnerability (CVE-2018-14933)

    Published In CISA KEV since Sources: pwn.watch, CVE.org

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    What is affected, what to do

    The vulnerability allows remote code execution (RCE) via OS command injection in NUUO NVRmini devices. An attacker can execute arbitrary commands through the uploaddir parameter in the writeuploaddir command. This vulnerability is actively exploited in the wild, as evidenced by its inclusion in the CISA KEV list. Affected products include devices running nuuo/nvrmini_firmware. Immediate patching is essential to mitigate this risk.

    The vulnerability is being actively exploited; treat it as a priority. The available sources name no fixed version. Check the vendor guidance in the references below. Immediate actions, mitigation and detection rules are in the runbook below.

    Affected
    • NUUO NVRmini Firmware eq 2016..2016

    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: pwn.watch, CVE.org

    94.8 %

    EPSS score

    High — model estimates ≥ 50% chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days.

    Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 99.86

    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
    228.78 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
    actively exploited
    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“.

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    94.8 %
    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
    99.86
    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
    Actively exploited
    Published
    In CISA KEV since

    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
    CISA assessment (SSVC)
    Exploitation: active · automatable · Technical impact: total
    Source: CISA Vulnrichment, as of 21 December 2024
    CWE

    CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect.

    Read in glossary
    CWE-78

    Response and mitigation

    Why act now?

    Prioritisation rationale

    This is unauthenticated HTTP command injection, exploitable with a single curl one-liner, which is why it sits on KEV; proof-of-concept code has been public for years and is continuously swept up by Mirai-style botnets, cryptominers and residential-proxy operators. Typical victims are internet-exposed NVRs in retail, logistics, smaller critical-infrastructure sites and facility management — forgotten appliances with no viable patch path. For NIS2-regulated operators every externally reachable instance is top priority even without a confirmed ransomware link, because the appliance is a cheap initial foothold for lateral movement into video, OT and office segments. Properly segmented, unreachable units can be queued lower but should remain on the replacement list.

    1. Runbook step 1

      Immediate response (0-24 h)

      • Inventory every NUUO NVRmini / NVRmini2 appliance (and OEM rebrands) on the estate via Nmap sweeps of the usual web-UI ports 80/443/8080/8081, grepping banners for "NUUO" or references to upgrade_handle.php.
      • Pull the web management interface off the public internet immediately: perimeter firewall rule denying inbound HTTP/HTTPS to NVR subnets; admin access only via VPN or jumphost.
      • If vendor firmware exists for the affected model: upgrade to the latest NUUO-provided build. Historically NUUO's patch coverage for this CVE has been incomplete — look up the current version in the vendor advisory; end-of-life units should be scheduled for replacement, not patched in place.
      • Rotate all local credentials on each NVR appliance, especially the web admin account; if the appliance is tied to AD/LDAP, treat those accounts as potentially exposed when the device was internet-reachable.
      • Lock down egress: allow only NTP, vendor telemetry and the central VMS; drop and alert on any shell-like outbound (reverse connects to 4444/tcp, high ephemeral ports to untrusted destinations).
      • Forensic readiness: capture a disk image or at minimum a configuration export before patching or factory-reset, since any previously exposed unit must be assumed compromised.

    2. Runbook step 2

      Mitigation layers

      • Network segmentation: place NVRs in a dedicated video/OT VLAN with default-deny; only named admin workstations may reach the web UI, only the central VMS may pull streams.
      • Reverse proxy or WAF in front of the device, blocking POSTs to /upgrade_handle.php outright or at least rejecting requests whose uploaddir parameter contains shell metacharacters (;, |, `, $(, &&, encoded %0a, %26). Example ModSecurity rule: SecRule ARGS:uploaddir "@rx [;|\x60\$\x26]" "id:1002018,phase:2,deny,log,msg:'CVE-2018-14933 NUUO cmd inj'".
      • IPS/IDS: enable or author a Suricata/Snort rule matching HTTP requests containing writeuploaddir plus shell-metachar pcre; do not rely on vendor signatures being enabled by default.
      • Appliance hardening where supported: disable unused services (Telnet, FTP, default-cred SSH), bind the web server to the management interface only, restrict diagnostic URLs via local .htaccess.
      • Authentication monitoring: forward successful and failed admin logins into the SIEM; while the CVE itself is pre-auth, follow-on persistence (new admin accounts, SSH keys) becomes visible.
      • Lifecycle: the 2016 NVRmini line is effectively end-of-life — raise a formal replacement case and prioritise migration to a currently supported video platform.

    3. Runbook step 3

      Detection rules

      • Web access logs: HTTP POST to upgrade_handle.php with cmd=writeuploaddir and URL-encoded shell metacharacters in uploaddir. KQL sketch: Url contains "upgrade_handle.php" and (UrlQuery contains "%3B" or UrlQuery contains "%7C" or UrlQuery contains "%60" or UrlQuery contains "%24%28").
      • Zeek http.log: alert on requests whose URI contains upgrade_handle.php with unusually long POST bodies or non-ASCII in parameters; legitimate upgrades are rare, scheduled events, so baseline is near-zero.
      • Egress detection: NVR source IP initiating outbound TCP to non-allowlisted destinations (Tor exits, known C2, VPS/hoster ASNs). Sigma shape: network_connection where src_ip in NVR_subnet and dst_ip not in allowlist.
      • On-device artefacts (if IR shell access is possible): new files in /tmp or the upload directory containing shell scripts, new cron entries, modified /etc/passwd, running nc, wget, curl, busybox as unexpected children.
      • DNS monitoring: NVRs should resolve only against internal resolvers; queries from the NVR subnet to external resolvers or dynamic-DNS providers (duckdns, no-ip) make high-fidelity alerts.

    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
    Actively exploited: treat the vulnerability as a priority in vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2. If it is exploited in your environment, check the reporting obligation under Art. 23 (early warning within 24 hours).
    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
    Since 11.09.2026, manufacturers of affected products with digital elements must report actively exploited vulnerabilities under Art. 14 CRA, with an early warning within 24 hours via ENISA's single reporting platform.
    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

    upgrade_handle.php on NUUO NVRmini devices allows Remote Command Execution via shell metacharacters in the uploaddir parameter for a writeuploaddir command.

    Source: pwn.watch, NVD (NIST), cvelistv5, CISA KEV Catalog, CVE.org (MITRE)

    Vendors and products

    Affected operating systems

    Affected operating systems
    Othernuuonvrmini_firmware2016

    Weakness classes (CWE)

    • CWE-78Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command ('OS Command Injection')

      Base

      The product constructs all or part of an OS command using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify the intended OS command when it is sent to a downstream component.

      Entry at MITRE CWE-78

    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.

    Public exploit references
    CISA KEV CatalogCISA Known Exploited Vulnerability (opens in a new tab)cisa.govactively exploited
    Exploit-DBEDB-ID 45070 (opens in a new tab)exploit-db.comPoC (publicly reported)reported, not verified—
    Exploit-DBEDB-ID 46340 (opens in a new tab)exploit-db.comPoC (publicly reported)reported, not verified—

    References & sources

    • exploit-db.com45070Exploit, x_refsource_EXPLOIT-DB, Exploit, Third-party advisory, Vulnerability database
    • exploit-db.com46340Exploit, x_refsource_EXPLOIT-DB, Exploit, Third-party advisory, Vulnerability database
    • cisa.govknown-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2018-14933government-resource, US government resource
    • pwn.watchpwn.watch: NUUO NVRmini Devices OS Command Injectionpwn-watch
    • nuuo.comNUUO advisory: CVE-2018-14933pwn-watch
    • NVD (NIST)NVD: CVE-2018-14933pwn-watch
    • cisa.govCISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalogpwn-watch
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