Fortinet has released patches to address a critical vulnerability in its FortiNAC network access control solution.
The zero trust access solution allows organizations to view devices and users on the network and provides granular control over network access policies.
Tracked as CVE-2023-33299 (CVSS score of 9.6), the critical flaw is described as an issue related to deserialization of untrusted data that can lead to remote code execution (RCE).
An unauthenticated attacker could exploit this vulnerability “to execute unauthorized code or commands via specifically crafted requests to the TCP/1050 service”, Fortinet explains in an advisory.
The vulnerability impacts FortiNAC versions up to 7.2.1, up to 9.4.2, up to 9.2.7, and up to 9.1.9, as well as all 8.x iterations.
Fortinet has addressed the security defect with the release of FortiNAC versions 9.4.3, 9.2.8, 9.1.10, and 7.2.2, but will not release patches for FortiNAC 8.x.
Code White security researcher Florian Hauser, who identified the issue, notes that there are few organizations exposing TCP port 1050 to the public internet. One of the identified organizations removed the vulnerable services a few days after Hauser reported them to CISA.
In addition to the RCE bug, Hauser identified and reported CVE-2023-33300, a medium-severity command injection via FortiNAC’s TCP/5555 service.
Described as an improper neutralization of special elements, the vulnerability can be exploited by “an unauthenticated attacker to copy local files of the device to other local directories of the device via specially crafted input fields”.
According to Fortinet, access to the copied data is only possible if the attacker has an existing foothold and enough privileges on the device.
The vulnerability was resolved with the release of FortiNAC versions 9.4.4 and 7.2.2.
Fortinet makes no mention of any of these vulnerabilities being exploited in attacks. However, it is not uncommon for threat actors to target security defects in Fortinet products for which patches had been released.
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