Tracked as CVE-2022-40684 and impacting FortiOS, FortiProxy, and FortiSwitchManager products, the vulnerability was publicly disclosed in early October, when it was already exploited in malicious attacks.
The issue is an authentication bypass allowing a remote attacker to use specially crafted HTTP or HTTPS requests to perform unauthorized operations on a vulnerable appliance’s admin interface.
Essentially, the security defect provides the attacker with admin access to SSH on the target appliance, allowing the attacker to update or add a valid public SSH key to the device and gain complete control over it.
