CISA, FBI warn of hacking threat against Fortinet product
The advisory warns that an unattributed threat actor is using known vulnerabilities in a Fortinet security product to gain access to government and industry networks.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI on Friday issued a new advisory warning that an advanced persistent threat actor is using old vulnerabilities in enterprise software from Fortinet to gain access to government and industry networks.
"The APT actors may be using any or all of these CVEs to gain access to networks across multiple critical infrastructure sectors to gain access to key networks as pre-positioning for follow-on data exfiltration or data encryption attacks," according to the advisory.
The advisory cites three known vulnerabilities in Fortinet's FortiOS that were identified in 2018, 2019 and 2020. FortiOS is an enterprise software used by major companies and governments to manage their network security. CISA and the FBI recommend organizations using FortiOS immediately patch these vulnerabilities.
Fortinet has customers among the Fortune 100 companies as well as government agencies including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, the IRS and the White House.
In a statement to FCW, a Fortinet spokesperson said the company previously provided patches for the vulnerabilities cited in the advisory.
"If customers have not done so, we urge them to immediately implement the upgrade and mitigations," the spokesperson said.
This article was updated April 2 to include comment from Fortinet.