Is this vulnerability remotely exploitable over the network?

Yes. An attacker who can operate a malicious SSH server or position themselves as a man-in-the-middle can send crafted key exchange and authentication messages to exploit the flawed state machine.

Does an attacker need valid credentials to exploit this issue?

Not necessarily. In some scenarios, the attacker's goal is to capture the client's credentials or to cause the client to bypass authentication entirely, which can be achieved without prior knowledge of valid credentials.

What is the safest general fix pattern for this class of issue?

Strengthen the protocol state machine to strictly enforce the expected SSH message ordering and transitions, ensure that authentication-related operations cannot occur until key exchange is correctly finalized, and add explicit checks that reject any unexpected or inconsistent message types in each state.

Severity:

CRITICAL RISK

(9.8)

Authentication Bypass via KEX State Machine Flaw (CWE-287) in wolfSSH

CVE-2025-14942

Published:

Jan 6, 2026

Status:

Analyzed

Summary

Affected Context

Exploit Preconditions

Why This Happens

Potential Impact

General Mitigation Guidance

How Teams Detect Issues Like This

Frequently Asked Questions

Source

NDV

Recent Vulnerabilities

CWE-77;CWE-78

HIGH RISK

HIGH

(7.3)

OS Command Injection (CWE-78) in Totolink A7100RU setGameSpeedCfg CGI Handler

Remote Code Execution on the Router

April 6, 2026

CWE-77;CWE-78

HIGH RISK

HIGH

(7.3)

OS Command Injection (CWE-78) in Totolink A7100RU setFirewallType Handler

Remote Code Execution on Router Firmware

April 6, 2026

Vulnerability Type

Category:

Authentication Bypass

CWE:

CWE-287

Impact:

Credential Disclosure and Authentication Bypass

Severity:

CRITICAL RISK

(9.8)

CVSS Version:

3.1

Vulnerability Type

Category:

Authentication Bypass

CWE:

CWE-287

Impact:

Credential Disclosure and Authentication Bypass

Severity:

CRITICAL RISK

(9.8)

CVSS Version:

3.1

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355 Bryant St. San Francisco, CA 94107, USA

Ask AI for summary of CodeAnt

Authentication Bypass via KEX State Machine Flaw (CWE-287) in wolfSSH

Summary

Affected Context

Exploit Preconditions

Why This Happens

Potential Impact

General Mitigation Guidance

How Teams Detect Issues Like This

Frequently Asked Questions

Source

Recent Vulnerabilities

HIGH RISK

HIGH

(7.3)

OS Command Injection (CWE-78) in Totolink A7100RU setGameSpeedCfg CGI Handler

HIGH RISK

HIGH

(7.3)

OS Command Injection (CWE-78) in Totolink A7100RU setFirewallType Handler

Vulnerability Type

Vulnerability Type

Vulnerability Type

Catch This CVE While Code Is Being Written

Ship clean & secure code faster

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