Overview
CVE-2025-54971 is a medium severity vulnerability affecting Fortinet FortiADC application delivery controllers. This vulnerability allows an attacker with read-only administrative privileges to potentially access sensitive information, specifically external resource passwords, by analyzing the system logs. This exposure could lead to unauthorized access to external resources configured within the FortiADC.
Technical Details
The vulnerability resides in how FortiADC handles the logging of certain events related to external resources. Specifically, under certain configurations, the password for external resources is inadvertently included in the system logs. A read-only administrator, while unable to directly modify configurations, can access these logs and potentially extract the plaintext password. This affects FortiADC versions 7.4.0, 7.2 (all versions), 7.1 (all versions), 7.0 (all versions), and 6.2 (all versions).
CVSS Analysis
The Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) assigns CVE-2025-54971 a score of 4.3 (Medium). The CVSS vector is likely AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N. This breaks down as follows:
- Attack Vector (AV): Network (N) – The vulnerability is exploitable over the network.
- Attack Complexity (AC): Low (L) – Exploitation requires minimal effort.
- Privileges Required (PR): Low (L) – Requires read-only privileges.
- User Interaction (UI): None (N) – No user interaction is required to trigger the vulnerability.
- Scope (S): Unchanged (U) – The vulnerability does not affect resources beyond the vulnerable component.
- Confidentiality Impact (C): Low (L) – Limited confidentiality impact, exposure of passwords to external resources.
- Integrity Impact (I): None (N) – No impact on data integrity.
- Availability Impact (A): None (N) – No impact on system availability.
Possible Impact
The exploitation of CVE-2025-54971 can have several potential impacts:
- Unauthorized Access: Gaining access to external resources configured within FortiADC could allow an attacker to compromise those systems.
- Lateral Movement: Compromised external resources can be used as a stepping stone to access other internal systems.
- Data Breach: Access to external resources could lead to the theft of sensitive data.
Mitigation and Patch Steps
Fortinet has released a patch to address this vulnerability. Users of affected FortiADC versions are strongly advised to upgrade to a patched version as soon as possible. Refer to the Fortinet advisory for the specific patched versions.
- Identify Affected Systems: Determine which FortiADC instances are running vulnerable versions (7.4.0, 7.2.x, 7.1.x, 7.0.x, 6.2.x).
- Apply the Patch: Upgrade to the fixed version as per Fortinet’s advisory.
- Review Logs: After patching, review historical logs for any signs of potential exploitation (unusual activity from read-only administrator accounts).
- Principle of Least Privilege: As a general security practice, review and restrict user permissions to the minimum required for their roles. If read-only access is not required, revoke it.
- Implement Log Monitoring: Implement robust log monitoring to detect and respond to suspicious activities.
