Feds Say Hackers are Likely Exploiting Critical Fortinet VPN Vulnerabilities
Fnord666 writes:
Feds say hackers are likely exploiting critical Fortinet VPN vulnerabilities
The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency [(CISA)] said that advanced hackers are likely exploiting critical vulnerabilities in the Fortinet FortiOS VPN in an attempt to plant a beachhead to breach medium and large-sized businesses in later attacks.
"APT actors may use these vulnerabilities or other common exploitation techniques to gain initial access to multiple government, commercial, and technology services," the agencies said Friday in a joint advisory. "Gaining initial access pre-positions the APT actors to conduct future attacks." APT is short for advanced persistent threat, a term used to describe well-organized and well-funded hacking groups, many backed by nation states.
[...] The FBI and CISA provided no details about the APT mentioned in the joint advisory. The advisory also hedges by saying that there is a "likelihood" the threat actors are actively exploiting the vulnerabilities.
Patching the vulnerabilities requires IT administrators to make configuration changes, and unless an organization is using a network with more than one VPN device, there will be downtime. While those barriers are often tough in environments that need VPNs to be available around the clock, the risk of being swept into a ransomware or espionage compromise is significantly greater.
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