Chinese hackers exploit FortiGate vulnerability to invade Dutch military network
Chinese state-sponsored hackers broke into computer networks used by the Dutch armed forces by targeting Fortinet FortiGate equipment.
“this [computer network] was used for unclassified research and development (R&D),” the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in a statement. “Because the system is self-contained, there is no damage to the defense network.” There are fewer than 50 users on the network.
The breach occurred in 2023 and exploited a known critical security vulnerability in FortiOS SSL-VPN (CVE-2022-42475, CVSS score: 9.3), which allowed an unauthenticated attacker to execute via a crafted request Any code.
Successful exploitation of this flaw paved the way for the deployment of a backdoor named COATHANGER from an attacker-controlled server designed to grant persistent remote access to infected devices.
“The COATHANGER malware is stealthy and persistent,” said the Dutch National Cyber Security Center (NCSC). “It hides itself by hooking system calls that may reveal its presence. It can be detected on reboots and firmware. Survived the upgrade.”
COATHANGER differs from BOLDMOVE, another backdoor associated with a suspected Chinese threat actor known to exploit CVE-2022-42475 as a zero-day attack targeting European government entities and Africa-based Managed Service Providers (MSPs). ) will be launched as soon as October 2022.
The development marks the first time the Netherlands has publicly blamed China for cyber espionage. Reuters, which reported the incident, said the malware was named after a snippet of code that contained a line from British author Roald Dahl’s short story “Lambs to the Slaughter.”
Days ago, U.S. authorities took steps to dismantle a botnet of outdated Cisco and NetGear routers that Chinese threat actors such as Volt Typhoon used to hide the origin of malicious traffic.
Last year, Google-owned Mandiant revealed that a cyber espionage group with close ties to China, tracked as UNC3886, exploited zero-day vulnerabilities in Fortinet equipment to deploy THINCRUST and CASTLETAP implants to execute arbitrary commands received from remote servers. and steal sensitive data.
from Tech Empire Solutions https://techempiresolutions.com/chinese-hackers-exploit-fortigate-vulnerability-to-invade-dutch-military-network/
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from Tech Empire Solutions https://techempiresolutions.blogspot.com/2024/02/chinese-hackers-exploit-fortigate.html
via https://techempiresolutions.com/
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