Pierluigi Paganini June 12, 2023

Fortinet released security updates to fix a critical security flaw in its FortiGate firewalls that lead to remote code execution.

Fortinet has released security patches to address a critical security vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2023-27997, in its FortiGate firewalls. An attacker can exploit the vulnerability to achieve remote code execution on vulnerable network equipment.

The vulnerability was reported to Fortinet by the researcher Charles Fol and DDXhunter from Lexfo Security. The researcher describes the issue as a reachable pre-authentication that impacts every SSL VPN appliance.

Fortinet has yet to publish an official advisory that plans to release in the forthcoming days.

#Fortinet published a patch for CVE-2023-27997, the Remote Code Execution vulnerability @DDXhunter and I reported. This is reachable pre-authentication, on every SSL VPN appliance. Patch your #Fortigate. Details at a later time. #xortigate

— Charles Fol (@cfreal_) June 11, 2023

Cybersecurity firm Olympe Cyberdefense has published an advisory on the vulnerability, highlighting that it is still not public at this stage. The flaw has been patched in versions 6.2.15, 6.4.13, 7.0.12, and 7.2.5.

“A new critical flaw, not made public at this stage, concerns Fortinet on its Fortigate firewalls, more specifically the SSL VPN functionalities.” reads the advisory. “The flaw would allow a hostile agent to interfere via the VPN, even if the MFA is activated.”

Below is the statement shared by the vendor with media outlets:

“Timely and ongoing communications with our customers is a key component in our efforts to best protect and secure their organization. There are instances where confidential advance customer communications can include early warning on Advisories to enable customers to further strengthen their security posture, prior to the Advisory being publicly released to a broader audience. This process follows best practices for responsible disclosure to ensure our customers have the timely information they need to help them make informed risk-based decisions. For more on Fortinet’s responsible disclosure process, visit the Fortinet Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) page: https://www.fortiguard.com/psirt_policy.”

BleepingComputer reported that searching for Fortigate firewalls exposed online there are more than 250K installs worldwide, most of them in the US.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, RCE)