Thousands of Fortinet devices compromised: hackers lurk after previous breaches
Hackers retain access to over 14,000 Fortinet VPNs, public scans by Shadowserver Foundation have revealed. And they could’ve been lurking for years, leaving sensitive data at risk. Fortinet explains that threat actors are using a post-exploitation technique to create malicious files from previously known Fortinet vulnerabilities, including CVE-2024-21762, CVE-2023-27997, and CVE-2022-42475. Fortinet also said it performed scans to identify compromised devices using internal telemetry and in collaboration with third-party organizations. The company also communicated directly with identified customers.
Shadowserver Foundation scans discovered around 14,300 infected Fortinet devices publicly exposed to the internet. Most of them, around 1,500, are in the US, followed by Japan (600), Taiwan (600), China (500), France (500). Over three hundred compromised FortiOS devices were also discovered in Thailand, Turkey, Israel, Italy, Canada, India, Spain, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
“It is critically important for all organizations to keep their devices up to date. A variety of government organizations have reported that state-sponsored threat actors are targeting all vendors, including known but unpatched vulnerabilities,” Fortinet warns.