Executive summary (TL;DR)
A command-injection vulnerability has been disclosed in Fortinet’s FortiDDoS-F appliances. It is tracked as CVE-2024-45325 and affects certain 7.0.x releases of FortiDDoS-F; Fortinet has published PSIRT guidance and patched builds. The flaw allows a privileged attacker with CLI access to run unauthorised OS commands on the device, potentially enabling configuration tampering, service disruption, or defeat of DDoS protections. A public proof-of-concept exists, so organisations should treat this as an active risk and act quickly: verify exposure, apply vendor fixes, and harden management/CLI access.
What the vulnerability is (technical summary)
- Type: Operating-system command injection in the FortiDDoS-F command-line interface (CLI). This means untrusted input can be interpreted as OS commands by the underlying system.
- Identifier/severity: Tracked as CVE-2024-45325; public reporting classifies it as a medium/important issue, but the real operational risk is high for organisations that expose management interfaces or reuse credentials.
- Attack preconditions: An attacker must be authenticated with privileged access to the CLI (direct console, SSH/management interface, or via compromised admin credentials). The vulnerability is not a pure unauthenticated remote RCE, but privileged credential compromise is a realistic scenario.
Affected versions & vendor guidance (what Fortinet says)
Fortinet’s PSIRT lists the affected releases and the versions containing fixes — e.g., certain 7.0.0–7.0.2 builds are impacted and should be upgraded to patched 7.0.3+ versions (7.2 series reported as not affected in the advisory). Customers should follow the FortiGuard/PSIRT advisory and upgrade to the vendor-recommended releases.
Why this matters (operational impact)
Because FortiDDoS devices sit in the traffic path to protect availability, compromise of one can have outsized effects:
- Bypass or disable mitigation: An attacker could alter or stop DDoS protections, leaving the network exposed.
- Persistence & lateral movement: With OS command execution, attackers can install backdoors on the device or use it as a pivot.
- Service disruption: Tampering with routing, forwarding, or failover can create outages.
- Trust loss & compliance: A compromised security appliance raises regulatory and customer-trust issues. Treat the device as high-impact infrastructure; even a “privileged-only” flaw is high risk in practice.
Current threat environment
Public write-ups and vulnerability trackers report that a PoC is available in the public domain — this increases the urgency because risk of weaponisation and opportunistic scans rises rapidly. Assume attackers will attempt credential stuffing, brute force, or supply-chain approaches to gain the required privileged access.
Detection & forensics — what to look for (practical signals)
Key places to check immediately:
- Admin/CLI access logs: failed/successful SSH or console logins, unusual source IPs, sudden logins outside normal hours. FortiDDoS attack/log features and admin logs should be checked.
- Command history / suspicious commands: indicators of shell commands run through the CLI, unexpected changes to filters/policies, or configuration rollbacks.
- Process/file system anomalies: new binaries, unexpected running processes, or altered system files. (Collect outputs for forensic preservation.)
- Network telemetry: sudden drops in mitigation rules, changes to forwarding, or unexplained traffic being forwarded to unusual destinations. Collect and preserve logs now (syslog, console outputs, configuration backups, timestamps) before applying changes that could overwrite evidence.
Immediate action plan (0–72 hours)
- Inventory & exposure check (hour 0–4): Identify all FortiDDoS-F appliances — management IPs, firmware versions, and whether CLI is reachable from untrusted networks.
- Isolate Management Plane: Block management interfaces from the Internet; restrict access to an allowlist of known admin IPs (jump host/bastion). If remote access is needed, require an encrypted VPN + MFA.
- Patch ASAP: If devices are on affected versions, schedule an urgent upgrade to the Fortinet-recommended patched release. Prioritise high-risk/Internet-exposed appliances.
- Rotate credentials & keys: Reset admin passwords, rotate SSH keys, and reissue any service credentials used on the device — after ensuring you have valid, clean backups.
- Enable/verify logging & monitoring: Ensure syslog is sent to a central, immutable collector and increase admin login audit verbosity. Check Attack Logs and audit trails in FortiDDoS.
- Hunt for compromise: Look for the detection signals above; if you find evidence of compromise, invoke your IR playbook (isolate device, forensically image, engage vendor/forensic team).
- Communicate: Inform stakeholders (SOC, NOC, CISO) and, where required, customers/regulators in a measured manner (see template below).
Medium & long-term recommendations (post-patch)
- Least privilege + Role Based Access Control: Limit CLI privileges; create separate accounts for config vs. monitoring tasks. Use AAA (TACACS+/RADIUS) with MFA for admin authentication.
- Management plane segmentation: Place management interfaces on a dedicated management VLAN or physically separate network and enforce strict ACLs.
- Configuration change monitoring: Implement configuration integrity checks and alerting for any unexpected config drift.
- Defence-in-depth: Don’t rely solely on appliance controls — combine upstream scrubbing, cloud providers’ DDoS tiers, rate limiting, and WAF controls.
- Regular pentests & tabletop drills: Simulate compromise of management credentials to validate detection and response. Wiseman recommends including security appliance compromise scenarios in red-team exercises.
- Patch policy & automation: Shorten patch windows for security appliances; maintain a test lab to validate firmware updates quickly.
(For Fortinet-specific hardening steps, see Fortinet’s system hardening guidance.)
If you cannot patch immediately, temporary controls
- Deny external access to management interfaces (block at perimeter/firewall).
- Enforce access via trusted bastion hosts only, with MFA and session recording.
- Increase monitoring on affected units and create high-priority alerts for any admin CLI activity.
- Rate-limit or geo-filter management plane traffic where possible.
Incident response checklist (if compromise suspected)
- Isolate the device from production traffic (move to maintenance mode / remove from routing path safely).
- Create forensic images/backups of device storage and configs.
- Preserve logs (syslog, SNMP, management session recordings).
- Engage vendor PSIRT and provide relevant logs for coordinated response.
- Rebuild or replace the appliance from a known-good image after full validation; avoid reusing potentially compromised backups.
Communications — short template for stakeholders
We have identified that Fortinet FortiDDoS-F appliances are affected by a known OS command injection vulnerability (CVE-2024-45325). We have initiated an immediate mitigation and incident-hunting process: management plane access is being restricted, affected devices are being assessed for the vendor-recommended patch, and logs have been preserved for forensic review. We will notify if evidence of compromise is found and provide next steps for impacted services.
Wiseman CyberSec — how we can help
From a practical, hands-on perspective, Wiseman can:
- Run accelerated triage (inventory, exposure map, version matrix) within 24–48 hours.
- Deploy emergency hardening and network ACLs to lock down management access.
- Validate and apply Fortinet firmware upgrades in a staging→production pipeline.
- Perform focused forensic hunts and, if needed, full incident response.
- Run red-team drills to validate detection for appliance compromise and improve runbooks.
If you want, we’ll produce a prioritised remediation roadmap for your environment (no audit required, we’ll use the telemetry you already have).
Final notes & cautions
- Do not seek or run public exploit PoCs in production environments; PoCs accelerate attacker activity and may cause instability. If you must test, do so only in an isolated lab under controlled conditions.
- This advisory is time-sensitive: treat management plane exposures as near-term critical risk even if the vulnerability requires privileged auth.
