Fortinet patches critical firewall flaws – details not until Nov. 10
For the first time, a Fortinet update includes fixes for flaws found by AI-assisted testing. Customers are urged to update quickly – critics fault the delayed disclosure.
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Network security vendor Fortinet has released updates for five products, including its FortiOS firewall operating system as well as FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer, FortiMail and FortiAuthenticator. The patches, issued on Oct. 21 and 22, fix critical and high-severity vulnerabilities. Fortinet is asking customers to treat the update “as a priority change rather than routine maintenance,” according to SecurityOnline. For FortiOS, these include versions 8.0.2, 7.6.8, 7.4.13 and 7.2.14.
According to Cybernews, it is the first release containing fixes for flaws found by Fortinet’s testing programme using advanced AI models. Projects from Anthropic and OpenAI were among those involved. Chief Security Officer Carl Windsor urged customers in a blog post to install the updates promptly, starting with internet-facing devices.
Fortinet plans to publish the CVE identifiers and full security advisories only on Nov. 10 – almost three weeks after the patches. Security firm watchTowr criticised the move. “Three weeks without information on the vulnerabilities gives attackers and researchers a playground for the hunt,” its researcher Yordan Ganchev said, according to Cybernews.