CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2016-8491 — Fortinet Fortiwlc security vulnerability

Critical CVSS 9.1

The presence of a hardcoded account named 'core' in Fortinet FortiWLC allows attackers to gain unauthorized read/write access via a remote shell.

Severity
Critical
CVSS
9.1 (3.0)
Published
2017-02-01
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
hardware/firmware
Weaknesses
CWE-798

Affected products

  • fortinet / fortiwlc / 7.0-9-1
  • fortinet / fortiwlc / 7.0-10-0
  • fortinet / fortiwlc / 8.1-2-0
  • fortinet / fortiwlc / 8.1-3-2
  • fortinet / fortiwlc / 8.2-4-0

Matched remediation archetype

Authentication bypass and missing authentication

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Map every affected endpoint and protocol path, including alternate ports, legacy routes, recovery flows, service accounts, and machine-to-machine access.
  • Confirm which deployments enable the affected authentication mode and whether the interface is reachable from untrusted networks.
  • Review session, token, credential, and proxy trust configuration without attempting account takeover.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and centralize fail-closed authentication before protected request handling.
  • Remove default or embedded credentials, rotate affected secrets and sessions, and bind authentication decisions to the intended audience and channel.
  • Add negative tests for alternate routes, malformed or absent credentials, recovery flows, and proxy-derived identity.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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