CriticalCVE-2023-52163

    Digiever DS-2105 Pro Missing Authorization Vulnerability (CVE-2023-52163)

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

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    What is affected, what to do

    The Digiever DS-2105 Pro devices have a missing authorization vulnerability that allows for command injection via time_tzsetup.cgi. An unauthenticated attacker can execute commands, leading to full control over the device. This vulnerability is actively exploited in ransomware campaigns since 2023 and affects only unsupported products. As the devices are no longer supported, upgrading to a secure version or replacing the device is recommended to mitigate security risks.

    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
    • Digiever Ds-2105 Pro Firmware eq 3.1.0.71-11..3.1.0.71-11
    • Digiever Ds-2105 Pro\+ Firmware eq 3.1.0.71-11..3.1.0.71-11

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    Metrics

    8.8

    Priority

    XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.

    Source: NVD, CVSS v3

    8.8

    CVSS v3

    Severity High on the scale from 0 to 10.

    Source: CVE.org, pwn.watch

    96.9 %

    EPSS score

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

    Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 99.89

    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
    231.50 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
    8.8 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
    8.8
    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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    96.9 %
    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
    99.89
    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 · not automatable · Technical impact: total
    Source: CISA Vulnrichment, as of 24 December 2025
    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-862

    Response and mitigation

    Why act now?

    Prioritisation rationale

    This CVE landed on KEV because it is network-reachable without authentication, yields full command execution on the device, and — most importantly — affects an EOL product with no patch pathway. Exploitation likelihood sits among the highest observed across the CVE corpus; the realistic adversary profile is mass scanning and opportunistic botnet recruitment (Mirai variants, crypto-miners, residential-proxy networks), even without a listed ransomware campaign. For NIS2-scope organisations, treat any internet-facing instance as already compromised; internally segmented devices rank mid-priority but demand a binding replacement timeline rather than a patch cycle.

    1. Runbook step 1

      Immediate response (0-24 h)

      • Inventory: Identify every Digiever DS-2105 Pro NVR (firmware 3.1.0.71-11 and earlier) on the network via Nmap sweeps on common web-UI ports (TCP/80, TCP/443, TCP/8080) and passive flow inspection for "Digiever" Server/User-Agent strings.
      • Confirm EOL status: The vendor no longer supports this product line, so there will be no patch. Make the call now: decommission, isolate, or replace. Do not wait for an advisory that will not arrive.
      • Kill internet exposure: Remove any port-forward or DNAT rule at the perimeter that reaches a Digiever management port. Run a Shodan/Censys query against your own ASN and public IP ranges to catch forgotten exposures.
      • Network segmentation: Move devices into an isolated VLAN with no outbound internet route; permit inbound access only from a hardened management jump host.
      • Rotate credentials: Change all local admin passwords on the NVRs and any reused accounts on connected services (NTP, SMTP relays, SMB shares used for recordings). Command injection runs in the web server context and can lift stored secrets.
      • Forensic baseline: Before changing anything, export the config and — where feasible — capture a filesystem snapshot. On EOL hardware without a patch path, assume prior compromise is plausible.

    2. Runbook step 2

      Mitigation layers

      • Perimeter ACL: Block all inbound traffic to Digiever NVRs at the edge; permit remote access only through VPN.
      • Reverse proxy / WAF: Front the devices and block requests to /cgi-bin/time_tzsetup.cgi, ideally all *.cgi endpoints, or only forward them after upstream authentication. Add payload filters for shell metacharacters (;, |, `, $(, &&, %0a) in query strings and POST bodies.
      • IPS/IDS: Deploy a Suricata/Snort rule that alerts or drops HTTP requests matching URI time_tzsetup.cgi combined with shell metacharacters in body or query. Add a secondary signature on TZ-style parameters containing non-alphanumeric characters outside /+-_.
      • Egress filtering: Restrict outbound traffic from the NVR VLAN to a whitelist (NTP, time servers, recording storage). This neutralises reverse shells, dropper downloads, and C2 beaconing after successful injection.
      • SPAN/mirror the NVR switchport to a SOC sensor; alert on unexpected outbound HTTP(S), IRC, or non-standard high-port TCP connections.
      • Medium-term: Plan replacement with a supported NVR platform that ships an SBOM and has an active CVE process. For NIS2/KRITIS scope, formally document the risk acceptance for as long as EOL hardware stays in production.

    3. Runbook step 3

      Detection rules

      • NVR web access log (if exportable via syslog): filter POST/GET to time_tzsetup.cgi with metacharacters. Sigma shape: selection: cs-uri-stem endswith '/time_tzsetup.cgi' AND cs-uri-query|re '[;|\x60$()&]'.
      • Zeek/Suricata: http.uri contains "time_tzsetup.cgi" combined with http.request.body matches /[;|&]|%0[aA]|\$\(/, raised at high severity.
      • Netflow anomaly: outbound connections from NVR source IPs to non-whitelisted destinations, especially TCP/4444, TCP/1337, TCP/9001, or DNS TXT lookups against dynamic-DNS providers. KQL shape: NetworkFlow | where SrcIp in (NVR_IPs) | where DstPort !in (123, 443) | summarize count() by DstIp.
      • Unexpected outbound HTTP user agents (wget, curl, busybox) originating from NVR IPs — the device does not initiate such clients in normal operation.
      • SNMP CPU/process-load baseline deviation if available: shells spawned under the web-server process typically produce measurable load spikes.

    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

    Digiever DS-2105 Pro 3.1.0.71-11 devices allow time_tzsetup.cgi Command Injection. NOTE: This vulnerability only affects products that are no longer supported by the maintainer.

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

    Vendors and products

    Affected operating systems

    Affected operating systems
    Otherdigieverds-2105_pro\+_firmware3.1.0.71-11
    Otherdigieverds-2105_pro_firmware3.1.0.71-11

    Weakness classes (CWE)

    • CWE-862Missing Authorization

      Class

      The product does not perform an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action.

      Entry at MITRE CWE-862

    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
    Reference tagged as exploitfortinet.com (opens in a new tab)PoC (publicly reported)reported, not verified—

    References & sources

    • txone.comblog/digiever-fixes-sorely-neededExploit, Third-party advisory
    • akamai.comblog/security-research/digiever-fix-that-iot-thingExploit, Third-party advisory
    • cisa.govknown-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2023-52163government-resource, US government resource
    • fortinet.comblog/threat-research/shadowv2-casts-a-shadow-over-iot-devicesThird-party advisory, Exploit, Third-party advisory
    • pwn.watchpwn.watch: Digiever DS-2105 Pro: DS-2105 Pro Missing Authorization Vulnerabilitypwn-watch
    • digiever.comDigiever advisory: Digiever DS-2105 Propwn-watch
    • NVD (NIST)NVD: CVE-2023-52163pwn-watch
    • cisa.govCISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalogpwn-watch
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    Badge preview for CVE-2023-52163
    <a href="https://intel.neosec.eu/en/cve/CVE-2023-52163"><img src="https://intel.neosec.eu/badge/cve/CVE-2023-52163.svg?lang=en" alt="CVE-2023-52163 – NEOSEC Intel" height="20"></a>