“This is due to their being accessible from the internet allowing actors to control the timing of the intrusion, and in the case of VPN devices and routers – the large amount of regular inbound connections makes blending in easier. “We believe the targeting of these devices will continue to be the go to technique for espionage groups attempting to access hard targets,” said Ben Read, head of Mandiant Cyber Espionage Analysis at Google Cloud. The attackers also established persistence on FortiAnalyzer and FortiManager devices using a custom API endpoint, and disabled OpenSSL digital signature verification of system files. They used super administrator privileges to maintain persistent access, and bypassed firewall rules using a passive traffic redirection utility. In the case of attacks involving CVE-2022-41328, Mandiant explained, the attackers exploited the flaw to write files to FortiGate firewalls. The security firm said it collaborated with Fortinet last year to investigate the deployment of malware on various Fortinet products, including the FortiGate firewall, the FortiAnalyzer log management and analytics platform, and the FortiManager management solution. Mandiant also believes UNC3886 was behind attacks observed last year that involved the installation of persistent backdoors on VMware ESXi hypervisors. The company is still looking for links between this and other Chinese threat actors. The UNC classification is used by Mandiant for uncategorized groups, but the company believes this threat actor is working in support of the Chinese government’s goals. In a blog post published on Thursday, Mandiant revealed that the attack was conducted by a cyberespionage group it tracks as UNC3886. The company launched an investigation after a firmware integrity check failed on a device.įortinet published indicators of compromise (IoCs), but did not share too much information on the attacker, other than that it appeared to have advanced capabilities - based on the use of custom implants - and a deep understanding of FortiOS and the underlying hardware. Fortinet announced patches on March 7 and made public some details about attacks exploiting the flaw two days later.įortinet said CVE-2022-41328 was exploited by a sophisticated threat actor in highly targeted attacks aimed at governmental or government-related entities.
The vulnerability in question is tracked as CVE-2022-41328 and it has been described as a medium-severity path traversal issue in FortiOS that can lead to command execution.
Google-owned cybersecurity firm Mandiant reported on Thursday that those attacks were likely conducted by a Chinese state-sponsored threat actor. Fortinet recently warned that a FortiOS zero-day vulnerability has been exploited in attacks aimed at government organizations.
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