# CVE-2018-3948: Denial of service in TP-Link

> An attacker can cause the TP-Link TL-R600VPN management portal to stop responding by sending a specially crafted URL, resulting in service downtime.

- **Severity:** High 7.5 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 30 Nov 2018
- **Updated:** 17 Sep 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-pf62-mvrg-fj5c

## What is CVE-2018-3948?

CVE-2018-3948 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in TP-Link, published on 30 Nov 2018. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

An exploitable denial-of-service vulnerability exists in the URI-parsing functionality of the TP-Link TL-R600VPN HTTP server. A specially crafted URL can cause the server to stop responding to requests, resulting in downtime for the management portal. An attacker can send either an unauthenticated or authenticated web request to trigger this vulnerability.

Weakness: CWE-20 (Improper Input Validation)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-3948?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Tp-Link Tl-R600vpn Firmware.

## How do I fix CVE-2018-3948?

No fix has been published for CVE-2018-3948 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2018-3948 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-3948 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in TP-Link

- [CVE-2018-3949](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-3949/): Path traversal in TP-Link (high 7.5)
- [CVE-2018-3950](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-3950/): Memory corruption in TP-Link (high 7.2)
- [CVE-2018-3951](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-3951/): Memory corruption in TP-Link (high 7.2)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2018-3948 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2018-3948 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in TP-Link, published on 30 Nov 2018. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-3948 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: TP-Link. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-3948/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-3948/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2018-3948
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-3948
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2018-3948

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-3948/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.