CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2019-16155 — Fortinet Forticlient security vulnerability

High CVSS 7.1

A privilege escalation vulnerability in FortiClient for Linux 6.2.1 and below may allow a user with low privilege to overwrite system files as root with arbitrary content through system backup file via specially crafted "BackupConfig" type IPC client requests to the fctsched process. Further more, FortiClient for Linux 6.2.2 and below allow low privilege user write the system backup file under root privilege through GUI thus can cause root system file overwrite.

Severity
High
CVSS
7.1 (3.1)
Published
2020-02-07
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application

Affected products

  • fortinet / forticlient

Matched remediation archetype

Privilege escalation and unsafe privilege management

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

Check exposure

  • Map service accounts, operating-system identities, roles, capabilities, impersonation, set-user transitions, and administrative helper paths.
  • Determine whether untrusted users or lower-privilege processes can reach the affected transition or modify inputs it trusts.
  • Review file, socket, registry, device, job, container, and cloud-role permissions used before and after privilege changes.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the supported fix and redesign privileged operations as a minimal, authenticated, allowlisted interface.
  • Drop privileges before processing untrusted input, verify the drop succeeds, and remove unnecessary roles, capabilities, and write permissions.
  • Validate ownership and permissions at time of use and add explicit lower-to-higher privilege boundary tests.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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