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

> 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.

- **Published:** 2026-07-13T00:00:00Z
- **Last reviewed:** 2026-07-13T00:00:00Z
- **Canonical:** https://intel.threadlinqs.com/threat/TL-2026-1251
- **ID:** TL-2026-1251
- **Severity:** HIGH (CVSS 8.8)
- **Category:** VULNERABILITY
- **Status:** ACTIVE
- **Detections:** 9 · **IOCs:** 23 (full data via the Threadlinqs MCP server — Purple tier)
- **CVEs:** CVE-2024-23630, CVE-2022-34885

## Description

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

- T1595 Active Scanning
- T1596 Search Open Technical Databases
- T1587 Develop Capabilities
- T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application
- T1059 Command and Scripting Interpreter
- T1601 Modify System Image
- T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation
- T1211 Exploitation for Stealth
- T1553 Subvert Trust Controls
- T1210 Exploitation of Remote Services
- T1557 Adversary-in-the-Middle
- T1495 Firmware Corruption
- T1036 Masquerading
- T1133 External Remote Services
- T1542 Pre-OS Boot
- T1588 Obtain Capabilities
- T1592 Gather Victim Host Information
- T1046 Network Service Discovery

## Sources

- [Hackers Exploit Motorola MR2600 Firmware Update](https://cybersecuritynews.com/hackers-exploit-motorola-mr2600-firmware-update/)
- [Unauthenticated RCE in Motorola's MR2600 Router](https://mrbruh.com/motorola/)
- [Motorola MR2600 Arbitrary Firmware Upload Vulnerability](https://blog.exodusintel.com/2024/01/25/motorola-mr2600-arbitrary-firmware-upload-vulnerability/)
- [MR2600 Command Injection Vulnerability](https://en-us.support.motorola.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/178087/p/10886)
- [NVD - CVE-2024-23630](https://services.nvd.nist.gov/rest/json/cves/2.0?cveId=CVE-2024-23630)
- [NVD - CVE-2022-34885](https://services.nvd.nist.gov/rest/json/cves/2.0?cveId=CVE-2022-34885)
- [Unauthenticated RCE in Motorola's MR2600 Router - Hacker News discussion](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48880406)
- [MR2600 Software Updates - Motorola Home Networking](https://help.motorolanetwork.com/kb/mr2600/mr2600-software-updates)
- [Motorola.MR2600.Devices.Arbitrary.Firmware.Upload IPS signature](https://fortiguard.fortinet.com/encyclopedia/ips/54772)

## Full data

Detection queries (Splunk SPL / Microsoft KQL / Sigma) and IOC values require the Threadlinqs MCP server (Purple tier): https://intel.threadlinqs.com/mcp

Canonical: https://intel.threadlinqs.com/threat/TL-2026-1251