A threat actor has leaked online access credentials for 87,000 Fortinet VPN devices that were apparently compromised using a vulnerability identified and patched two years ago.
Approximately 500,000 credentials for FortiGate SSL-VPN devices were leaked online last week, essentially providing anyone with access to devices at organizations in 74 countries around the world.
A total of 22,500 entities are believed to be affected, with nearly 3,000 of them located in the United States. Others are located in France, India, Italy, Israel, and Taiwan.
The credentials, according to Fortinet, were stolen from devices still vulnerable to CVE-2018-13379, a path traversal vulnerability in the FortiOS SSL VPN web portal, which is known to have been exploited in live attacks.
An unauthenticated attacker could use special crafted HTTP requests to exploit the security hole and download system files from the SSL VPN web portal. The login credentials are located in the FortiOS system files.
Fortinet also warned that devices that received the patch for CVE-2018-13379 may continue to be vulnerable if the compromised password isn’t changed after the patch is fully deployed.
[ READ: Hackers Target Vulnerabilities in Fortinet, Pulse Secure Products ]
“Fortinet is reiterating that, if at any time your organization was running any of the affected versions listed below, even if you have upgraded your devices, you must also perform the recommended user password reset following upgrade, as per the customer support bulletin and other advisory information. Otherwise, you may remain vulnerable post-upgrade if your users’ credentials were previously compromised,” the company said.
The leaked credentials were posted online by a member of the Groove ransomware operation, according to threat hunters tracking ransomware campaigns.
Owners of FortiGate SSL-VPN devices are advised to update to FortiOS 5.4.13, 5.6.14, 6.0.11, or 6.2.8 and above, and to reset the passwords for their devices after the update.
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