SSH Backdoor Found In Fortinet Firewalls (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The IT community was shaken a few weeks ago when Juniper Networks firewalls were found to contain "unauthorized code" that seemed to enable a backdoor. Now, Fortinet firewalls have been found to contain an apparent SSH backdoor as well. "According to the exploit code, the undisclosed authentication works on versions 4.3 up to 5.0.7. If correct, the surreptitious access method was active in FortiOS versions current in the 2013 and 2014 time frame and possibly earlier, based on this rough release history. The weakness was eventually patched, but so far, researchers have been unable to locate a security advisory that disclosed the alternative authentication method or the hard-coded password." A spokesperson for Fortinet told El Reg, "This was not a 'backdoor' vulnerability issue but rather a management authentication issue."

Comments

Re: "management" = ???

[ZeroWaiteState]

The fact that DoD (who is just one government among many) spent well over 9 figures on exploits means that government surveillance actually is the simplest explanation these days.

Re: NSA spotted - or throwing out misdirection?

[ZeroWaiteState]

They weren't caught out. Most likely the exploit is already known in several countries and the risk of leaving the exploit in place outweighs operational benefit. If they were actually caught out you wouldn't hear anything because Fortinet would be under NSL.

Volkswagen`cf. Juniper/Fortinet

[Tokolosh]

The reaction to these types of revelations should be the same as for the VW emissions scandal. A fired CEO, congressional FCC and FTC investigations, class-actions, naming and shaming of the individuals responsible, and the source code.