A recent vulnerability discovered in Fortinet's FortiOS operating system allows for unauthenticated remote users to exploit an allocation of resources without limits or throttling vulnerability (CWE-770). The vulnerability, assigned the identifier CVE-2024-46668, can potentially lead to a system-wide Denial of Service (DoS) attack. The affected versions of FortiOS are 7.4. through 7.4.4, 7.2. through 7.2.8, 7.. through 7..15, and 6.4. through 6.4.15.

Exploit Details

The vulnerability is due to the lack of proper restrictions on the amount of memory allocated for processing large file uploads in the affected versions of FortiOS. An unauthenticated remote attacker can take advantage of this weakness by sending multiple large file uploads to the target system, resulting in the consumption of all available system memory resources. This, in turn, can lead to the affected system becoming unresponsive and eventually crashing.

Example Code Snippet

An example exploit script could potentially look like the following (for demonstration purposes only):

import requests

target_url = 'https://example.com/upload';

large_file = 'large_file.bin'

with open(large_file, 'rb') as f:
    while True:
        response = requests.post(target_url, files={'file': f})
        if response.status_code != 200:
            break

The above script sends multiple requests to the target server with a large binary file in an attempt to consume the server's system memory.

1. Fortinet Advisory: FG-IR-19-047
2. CVE-2024-46668 - NIST National Vulnerability Database (NVD)
3. The Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE-770)

Mitigation and Remediation

To protect systems from this vulnerability, Fortinet has released patches for the affected FortiOS versions. It is strongly recommended that users upgrade their systems to the following patched versions:

* FortiOS 7.4.5 or later
* FortiOS 7.2.9 or later
* FortiOS 7..16 or later
* FortiOS 6.4.16 or later

In addition to applying the security patches, system administrators should also consider implementing additional security measures such as limiting the number and size of file uploads, as well as monitoring system memory usage to detect unusual levels of consumption.

Conclusion

The allocation of resources without limits or throttling vulnerability (CVE-2024-46668) in FortiOS poses a significant risk to the stability and availability of affected systems. It is crucial for users running vulnerable versions of the software to apply the security patches and implement suitable measures to safeguard their systems from potential attacks.

Timeline

Published on: 01/14/2025 14:15:31 UTC