{"id":400,"date":"2026-09-02T23:52:51","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T23:52:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thered0ne.com\/?p=400"},"modified":"2026-09-02T23:55:31","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T23:55:31","slug":"nokia-beacon-3-1-reverse-engineering-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thered0ne.com\/?p=400","title":{"rendered":"Nokia Beacon 3.1: Reverse Engineering (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Cute<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\ud83c\udfce\ufe0f\ud83d\udca8 Back to the future – Summary of part 1<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Part 1 demonstrated how root shell access was achieved on the Nokia Beacon 3.1 by physically extracting the NAND flash, dumping and analyzing the firmware, modifying it, and re-flashing it back to the device. The goal of that initial exploration was not simply to \u201cunlock\u201d the device, but to highlight the actual security boundaries enforced at the firmware and hardware level, and how those boundaries can be bypassed when physical access is assumed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several readers asked for a universal \u201croot password\u201d or a simple unlock method. That assumption is incorrect. There is no single shared root credential across devices. In ISP managed deployments like this, credentials are typically provisioned per-device and may be derived from manufacturing data or external provisioning systems controlled by the ISP or vendor infrastructure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Administrative accounts (such as admin <\/strong>or superadmin<\/strong>) are separate, each governed by their own authentication mechanism and, in many cases, provisioned dynamically rather than being statically embedded in firmware. As a result, privilege escalation in this context is not about finding a generic password, but about understanding how trust is established between hardware, firmware, and provisioning systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the comments from my previous article, many of you asked whether there is a simpler method to obtain shell access without the full hardware extraction process described in Part 1. The only alternative method identified involved is an exploitation of a vulnerability device, which could be used to execute system-level commands under specific conditions. However, this issue has since been addressed in the latest 2026 firmware release and is no longer exploitable on updated systems. The vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2025-9974<\/a> and was patched by the vendor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The good news is, not all updates are pushed into all routers and maybe yours too. You have to check if it is vulnerable or not by following the procedure described later. Just cross your fingers and stay with me\ud83e\udd1e\ud83c\udffb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u26a0\ufe0f Keeping your device without security update is dangerous. This write-up is provided for informational and security research purposes only. The vulnerability described has been patched by the vendor in recent firmware versions, and it is not exploitable on updated systems. The intent is to document the behavior of the system and the remediation process, not to provide a method for unauthorized access.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83d\ude80 Disable Quagga shell – Hardware method: <\/h1>\n\n\n\n

The Nokia Beacon 3.1 includes the Quagga shell<\/strong>, a restricted command-line environment intended for network administration rather than full system access. On my device, only the superadmin<\/strong> account provided access to this shell, and even then, the available commands were heavily restricted. While it is useful for basic diagnostics and configuration, it does not provide unrestricted access to the underlying operating system. That limitation is what motivated this research and the development of this method. This chapter it only applies to devices whose NAND firmware has already been modified as described in Part 1.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the previous article, I successfully obtained a root shell by modifying the firmware and replacing the system’s init<\/code> process with \/bin\/sh<\/code>. However, it came with a significant drawback: because the normal initialization process never started, essential services and background processes failed to launch. As a result, the router booted into a shell, but many of its networking and management features were unavailable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n