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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."
"This was not a 'backdoor' vulnerability issue but rather a management authentication issue. The issue was identified by our product security team as part of their regular review and testing efforts. After careful analysis and investigation, we were able to verify this issue was not due to any malicious activity by any party, internal or external."
Their PR firm is earning its money today.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
That depends how much traffic you are shifting and how many ports you need. Using a linux or BSD box as a firewall is common now at the low end of performance - a lot of firewall appliances actually are nothing more than modified rack servers running linux and a web interface for ease of management, like Smoothwall. But if you want to put a firewall between two networks with a 20Gb/s backbone while meeting a strict latency target? You need something specialised. There's still a space for dedicated firewall appliances at the top end. They do a lot more than just iptables-like rule sets too - lots more SPI, detection and automatic blocking of IPs trying to use known vulnerabilities, logging of specified events (ie, any external IP connecting to a server on port 22), detection of port scanners. Fortinet have firewalls with 100Gb/s ports, and the routing/filtering capacity to keep up too. Hardware firewalls are still going strong at the top end - if you've got the need, you've probably got the money.
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.
A spokesperson for Fortinet told El Reg, "This was not a 'backdoor' vulnerability issue but rather a management authentication issue."
Later they said, "You didn't get 'pwned', you got 'haxored'...it's like, totally different, man."
And just for the record, I'm not "eating a potato", I'm "utilizing a starch resource with a multi-pronged utensil!"
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
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.
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.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number