Unauthenticated RCE in Motorola MR2600 Wi-Fi Router via Firmware Upload Validation Bypass (related: CVE-2024-23630, CVE-2022-34885)

Unauthenticated RCE in Motorola MR2600 Wi-Fi Router via (TL-2026-1251), also tracked as Motorola MR2600 Firmware Upload Validation Bypass, is a high-severity software vulnerability scored CVSS 8.8, first published 2026-07-13. It has no confirmed attribution, affects Motorola (Motorola Mobility / Motorola Solutions - ownership disputed), references 2 CVEs (CVE-2024-23630, CVE-2022-34885), maps to 18 MITRE ATT&CK techniques (T1036, T1046, T1059), and is covered by 9 detection rules and 23 indicators of compromise.

Key facts for TL-2026-1251

Threat ID
TL-2026-1251
Also known as
Motorola MR2600 Firmware Upload Validation Bypass, MR2600 SOAP Auth Bypass RCE
Severity
HIGH
CVSS
8.8 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H)
Status
ACTIVE
Category
VULNERABILITY
First published
2026-07-13
Last reviewed
2026-07-13
Attribution confidence
LOW
Motivation
UNKNOWN
Target sectors
consumer, small-office-home-office, telecoms
Target regions
Global
Detection rules
9
Indicators of compromise
23

Malware and tooling in Unauthenticated RCE in Motorola MR2600 Wi-Fi Router via

Malware and tooling: Shodan

Researcher MrBruh disclosed a new unauthenticated remote code execution chain against the end-of-life Motorola MR2600 Wi-Fi router, combining a firmware-upload multipart-validation bypass with an inconsistent-URL-matching SOAP authentication bypass to flash unsigned, CRC32-passing malicious firmware. Shodan showed 41 internet-exposed MR2600 devices with remote administration enabled at disclosure time; the router received two prior CVEs (CVE-2024-23630 arbitrary firmware upload, CVE-2022-34885 command injection) that Motorola never fully remediated on the now-abandoned product line.

How Unauthenticated RCE in Motorola MR2600 Wi-Fi Router via works

On 2026-07-13, security researcher MrBruh published a detailed writeup (mrbruh.com/motorola/) documenting an unauthenticated remote code execution chain against the Motorola MR2600, a discontinued Wi-Fi 5 router whose last firmware release was v1.0.22 (mid-2024). The exploit chain has two unauthenticated stages that combine into full device compromise: (1) a firmware upload validation bypass in the fwupload.cgi handler reachable at POST /WEBCGI1/prog.fcgi?method=/cgi-bin/fwupload.cgi, where the code checks the SEAMA magic bytes (0x27 0x05 0x19 0x56) against the raw multipart request body instead of first extracting the uploaded file field from the form; sending raw firmware bytes without the expected multipart boundary prefix (legitimate requests start with '----') causes the check to fail in a way that still leaves the malicious image persisted to /tmp/firmware.img, even though the surrounding request is rejected as unauthenticated. (2) A SOAP-endpoint authentication bypass in the request router for POST /WEBCGI1/, which normally requires authentication before invoking the LoadFirmwareValidation SOAP action (http://purenetworks.com/WEBCGI1/LoadFirmwareValidation) that flashes the staged image. The access-control logic uses inconsistent string comparison: it performs substring/allowlist matching for permitted pages (e.g. Login.html) but exact-equality denylist matching for the protected /WEBCGI1/ path. Appending an allowlisted page name as a query parameter -- POST /WEBCGI1/?Login.html -- causes the substring check for 'Login.html' to pass while the exact-match check against '/WEBCGI1/' fails, so the request is treated as public and reaches the privileged SOAP handler. Once validation is invoked, the device runs 'mtd_write -r -w write /tmp/firmware.img Kernel &', where the -r flag forces an automatic reboot into the attacker-supplied kernel image. Firmware validation only checks SEAMA image structure and a CRC32 checksum -- there is no cryptographic signature requirement -- so an attacker can trivially construct a malicious image that a) declares the correct SEAMA header and b) carries a correct CRC32, passing every integrity gate the device enforces. The result is unauthenticated, persistent code execution on the router, enabling network traffic interception/modification, malware deployment, and use of the device as a pivot for further lateral attacks against the LAN it serves. Any attacker on the local network can trigger the chain without credentials; if the device's remote-management feature is enabled, the same chain is reachable from the internet. MrBruh used Shodan to identify 41 internet-exposed MR2600 routers with remote administration enabled at time of publication. Disclosure timeline: vulnerability discovered 2026-06-07, Motorola Mobility contacted 2026-06-16, Motorola Solutions contacted 2026-06-19 (the two Motorola-branded entities disputed ownership of the product, delaying triage), public disclosure published 2026-07-13 given the device's end-of-life status and lack of vendor engagement. This is not the router's first security issue: Exodus Intelligence separately disclosed CVE-2024-23630 (arbitrary firmware upload via a bypassable authentication requirement, CVSS 3.1 8.8/9.0, CWE-434) after Motorola sat on the report from 2021-04-29 to public disclosure on 2024-01-25 without patching, and Motorola's own support portal documents CVE-2022-34885 (local command injection via improper input sanitization, CWE-20, reported by Jiaqian Peng of the Institute of Information Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences), fixed only in firmware versions at or after 1.0.18. No CVE has yet been assigned to the new 2026 firmware-upload/SOAP-auth-bypass chain at time of this record; no threat-actor attribution or IOCs (malware hashes, C2 domains/IPs) were published, as this is proof-of-concept vulnerability research rather than an observed in-the-wild campaign.

MITRE ATT&CK techniques used in TL-2026-1251

Defense Evasion

T1036 Masquerading; T1211 Exploitation for Stealth

Discovery

T1046 Network Service Discovery

Execution

T1059 Command and Scripting Interpreter

Privilege Escalation

T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation

Initial Access

T1133 External Remote Services; T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application

Lateral Movement

T1210 Exploitation of Remote Services

Impact

T1495 Firmware Corruption

Persistence

T1542 Pre-OS Boot

defense-impairment

T1553 Subvert Trust Controls; T1601 Modify System Image

Collection

T1557 Adversary-in-the-Middle

Resource Development

T1587 Develop Capabilities; T1588 Obtain Capabilities

Reconnaissance

T1592 Gather Victim Host Information; T1595 Active Scanning; T1596 Search Open Technical Databases

Affected products and versions in Unauthenticated RCE in Motorola MR2600 Wi-Fi Router via

  • Motorola (Motorola Mobility / Motorola Solutions - ownership disputed) — MR2600 Wi-Fi Router
    Vulnerable versions: 1.0.7; 1.0.18; 1.0.22 (latest/EOL)
    Fixed in: No fix available for the 2026 firmware-upload/SOAP-auth-bypass chain or CVE-2024-23630; CVE-2022-34885 fixed at 1.0.18+

Remediation for Unauthenticated RCE in Motorola MR2600 Wi-Fi Router via

Patches

  • No patch available for the 2026 firmware-upload/SOAP-auth-bypass chain; device is end-of-life and unsupported
  • CVE-2022-34885 fixed in MR2600 firmware 1.0.18 or later
  • No patch was ever released for CVE-2024-23630 (arbitrary firmware upload)

Immediate actions

  • Disable remote/WAN administration on all Motorola MR2600 routers immediately
  • Restrict access to the router's admin web interface (/WEBCGI1/) to trusted LAN hosts only via firewall/ACL
  • Segment or firewall the MR2600 from other network assets to limit blast radius if compromised
  • Monitor for unexpected POST requests to /WEBCGI1/prog.fcgi?method=/cgi-bin/fwupload.cgi or /WEBCGI1/?Login.html from unauthenticated sources
  • Watch for unplanned device reboots or firmware version changes, which may indicate a successful flash

Workarounds

  • Disable remote management as the primary compensating control since no firmware fix exists
  • Physically or logically isolate the device from untrusted network segments
  • Consider decommissioning the device given no vendor is claiming ownership for future fixes

Longer-term hardening

  • Replace end-of-life Motorola MR2600 hardware with a currently supported, actively patched router model
  • Enforce cryptographic firmware signature verification requirements when selecting replacement network hardware
  • Establish an internal asset inventory process to flag EOL network devices for proactive replacement
  • Deploy network-level anomaly detection for SOHO/edge router traffic patterns

CVEs associated with Unauthenticated RCE in Motorola MR2600 Wi-Fi Router via

CVE-2024-23630, CVE-2022-34885

Weaknesses (CWE) in Unauthenticated RCE in Motorola MR2600 Wi-Fi Router via

CWE-434, CWE-20, CWE-287, CWE-289

Timeline of Unauthenticated RCE in Motorola MR2600 Wi-Fi Router via

  • Exodus Intelligence privately notifies Motorola of an arbitrary firmware upload vulnerability (later assigned CVE-2024-23630) in the MR2600.
  • Jiaqian Peng of the Institute of Information Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, reports a local command injection vulnerability (CVE-2022-34885) in the MR2600, later fixed in firmware 1.0.18.
  • Exodus Intelligence's disclosure also documents a separate command injection issue in the MR2600's SaveStaticRouteIPv4Params SOAP parameter handler, alongside the arbitrary-firmware-upload finding.
  • Exodus Intelligence publicly discloses CVE-2024-23630 (arbitrary firmware upload / bypassable authentication) after nearly three years without a vendor patch.
  • MrBruh obtains MR2600 firmware through public distribution channels, extracts the filesystem, and statically analyzes the fwupload.cgi and SOAP request-router CGI scripts to identify the validation logic flaws.
  • Researcher MrBruh discovers a new unauthenticated RCE chain in the MR2600 combining a firmware upload validation bypass with a SOAP authentication bypass.
  • MrBruh contacts Motorola Mobility regarding the newly discovered vulnerability chain; Mobility claims the product falls outside its mobile-phone-only scope.
  • MrBruh contacts Motorola Solutions after Motorola Mobility does not claim ownership of the product line; Solutions reassigns responsibility back to Mobility, leaving the report unresolved.
  • Disclosure is discussed and amplified on Hacker News the same day as publication.
  • MrBruh publishes full technical writeup at mrbruh.com/motorola/ detailing the exploit chain; Cyber Security News covers the disclosure the same day.

Sources cited for Unauthenticated RCE in Motorola MR2600 Wi-Fi Router via

Threats related to Unauthenticated RCE in Motorola MR2600 Wi-Fi Router via

Detection coverage for TL-2026-1251

As of 2026-07-13, Threadlinqs Intelligence publishes 9 detection rule(s) for TL-2026-1251 across Splunk SPL, Microsoft KQL and Sigma, covering 23 indicator(s) of compromise. The whole corpus is readable without an account; a free account unlocks full detection query text in Splunk SPL, Microsoft KQL and Sigma; paid tiers add raw indicator values, correlation and the MCP server. Threadlinqs MCP server · View plans.

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