Cyber Posture

CVE-2023-53963

CriticalPublic PoC

Published: 22 December 2025

Published
22 December 2025
Modified
13 January 2026
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0290 86.4th percentile
Risk Priority 21 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Description

SOUND4 IMPACT/FIRST/PULSE/Eco v2.x contains an unauthenticated OS command injection vulnerability that allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary shell commands through the 'password' parameter. Attackers can exploit the login.php and index.php scripts by injecting shell commands via the 'password' POST parameter…

more

to execute commands with web server privileges.

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI

prevent

SI-10 mandates information input validation at the login.php and index.php endpoints to sanitize or reject shell metacharacters in the 'password' POST parameter, directly preventing OS command injection.

prevent

SI-2 requires identification, reporting, and correction of the specific input sanitization flaw in the affected products, remediating the CVE to stop arbitrary command execution.

prevent

AC-6 enforces least privilege for the web server process, limiting the scope and impact of any successfully injected shell commands.

Security SummaryAI

CVE-2023-53963 is an unauthenticated OS command injection vulnerability (CWE-78) in SOUND4 IMPACT, FIRST, PULSE, and Eco products version 2.x. The issue affects the login.php and index.php scripts, where the 'password' POST parameter fails to properly sanitize input, allowing remote attackers to inject and execute arbitrary shell commands with web server privileges. It carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H), indicating critical severity due to its network accessibility, low complexity, and potential for high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Remote, unauthenticated attackers can exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted POST requests to the affected endpoints with shell metacharacters in the 'password' parameter. No user interaction or privileges are required, enabling exploitation over the network with minimal effort. Successful attacks allow arbitrary command execution on the underlying operating system, which could lead to full server compromise, data exfiltration, persistence, or further lateral movement depending on the web server's context and privileges.

Advisories from Vulncheck and ZeroScience (ZSL-2022-5738) describe the vulnerability and exploitation details, while a proof-of-concept exploit is publicly available on Exploit-DB (exploit 51173). The archived SOUND4 website provides product context, but no specific patches or vendor mitigations are detailed in the references.

A public exploit on Exploit-DB highlights the risk of real-world abuse against internet-exposed instances of these audio processing devices.

Details

CWE(s)

Affected Products

sound4
impact firmware
1.69, 2.15
sound4
pulse firmware
1.69, 2.15
sound4
first firmware
1.69, 2.15
sound4
impact eco firmware
1.16
sound4
pulse eco firmware
1.16
sound4
big voice4 firmware
1.2
sound4
big voice2 firmware
1.30
sound4
wm2 firmware
1.11
sound4
stream extension
2.4.29

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
T1059.004 Unix Shell Execution
Adversaries may abuse Unix shell commands and scripts for execution.
Why these techniques?

Unauthenticated remote OS command injection via unsanitized 'password' parameter in web scripts directly enables T1190 (Exploit Public-Facing Application) and facilitates T1059.004 (Unix Shell) for arbitrary shell command execution with web server privileges.

Confidence: HIGH · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

References