Noteworthy digital security product developer, Fortinet, recently alerted users to a critical vulnerability in its lauded FortiGate firewalls. Identified as CVE-2024-55591, the susceptibility is allegedly “being exploited in the wild,” warns Fortinet in a recent public announcement.
Patches have been provided to fix the issue, but a major concern has emerged as malicious hackers are believed to be mass-exploiting this vulnerability, even before Fortinet could roll out necessary fixes, an instance known as a zero-day.
This fresh disclosure brings into focus yet another problematic loophole malfeasants could exploit in common enterprise security products; these products are typically designed to help fortify corporate networks from potential breaches. This new FortiGate firewall bug follows close on the heels of a separate Ivanti VPN server zero-day fault, known to provide intruders undue access to customer networks.
Arctic Wolf, a well-known cybersecurity firm cautioned about a recent episode of “mass exploitation” involving Fortinet’s FortiGate firewall contrivances with publicly accessible management interfaces.
Arctic Wolf’s lead threat intelligence researcher, Stefan Hostetler, confirmed to TechCrunch that the vulnerability in question does concern the FortiGate firewalls. He revealed the exploitation affected “tens” of Fortinet devices, adding a critical qualifier – this number represents a minuscule sample compared to the likely total number of affected devices.
While Fortinet refrains from revealing how many customers had fallen prey to this breach, the company assured that constant communication was ongoing with the affected clientele. The orchestrators behind these attacks remain undetermined. However, some cybersecurity experts posit that a ransomware operator may be exploiting the vulnerability.
As future ransomware attacks leveraging this security deferment remains a possibility, Fortinet customers have been urged by U.S. cybersecurity CISA to promptly update their devices.
Original source: Read the full article on TechCrunch
