What is CVE-2023-1389?
TP-Link Archer AX21 (AX1800) firmware versions before 1.1.4 Build 20230219 contained a command injection vulnerability in the country form of the /cgi-bin/luci;stok=/locale endpoint on the web management interface. Specifically, the country parameter of the write operation was not sanitized before being used in a call to popen(), allowing an unauthenticated attacker to inject commands, which would be run as root, with a simple POST request.
The record classifies CVE-2023-1389 under weakness class CWE-77. Its CVSS v3 base vector states that the flaw is reachable from an adjacent network, needs no prior authentication, needs no user interaction, and has high impact on confidentiality, integrity, availability. 1 affected-product entry is recorded, across 1 vendor, listed below. The identifier was first published 1305 days ago.
Severity and exploitation probability
- CVSS v3.1 base score
- 8.8 — HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H - EPSS (FIRST)
- 99.9% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 99.9% of all scored CVEs
- CISA KEV
- Listed since 2023-05-01, federal remediation deadline 2023-05-22
- Threadlinqs priority
- 9/10 — CISA KEV-listed, which Threadlinqs floors at 9
- Published
- 2023-03-15, last modified 2025-10-21
Is CVE-2023-1389 being exploited?
CISA added CVE-2023-1389 to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2023-05-01, which means the agency holds evidence of exploitation in the wild; US federal civilian agencies had to remediate it by 2023-05-22 under BOD 22-01. Weaponised exploit code for CVE-2023-1389 is publicly available. 3 public proof-of-concept repositories are tracked for this identifier. A ProjectDiscovery Nuclei detection template exists (http/cves/2023/CVE-2023-1389.yaml). It currently carries a trending score of 60 in the Threadlinqs vulnerability feed.
- Voyag3r-Security/CVE-2023-1389 (github)
- werwolfz/CVE-2023-1389 (github)
- trickest/cve (trickest)
Affected products and versions
- (vendor unspecified): TP-Link Archer AX21 (AX1800)
How to fix CVE-2023-1389
Because CVE-2023-1389 is KEV-listed, US federal civilian agencies were required to apply the vendor fix, or stop using the product, by 2023-05-22. No vendor patch reference has been recorded for CVE-2023-1389 in the tracked sources. Follow the references below for a fix, and treat the products listed above as exposed until the vendor states otherwise.
Threat activity tracking CVE-2023-1389
4 tracked threats in the Threadlinqs corpus reference CVE-2023-1389, either in the campaign’s CVE list or as an indicator on the campaign record.
- Evooo1Bot: Multi-Functional Mirai-Based Linux Botnet Exploiting 18 Known CVEs in Internet-Facing Devices — HIGH · 2026-10-09
- ClingSTUN Linux Backdoor Turns Unpatched IoT Devices Into Proxy Nodes via Public STUN Infrastructure — HIGH · 2026-10-05
- Cling IoT botnet masquerades as Google STUN traffic for C2, exploiting Realtek Jungle SDK CVE-2021-35394 — CRITICAL · 2026-10-03
- TuxBot v3 Evolution: LLM-Assisted IoT Botnet Framework With a Broken Multi-CVE Exploit Chain — HIGH · 2026-07-15
Sources
Enriched from CVE.org, FIRST EPSS, CISA KEV, GitHub Security Advisories, public proof-of-concept repositories, ProjectDiscovery Nuclei. Last verified by Threadlinqs on .