China spied on Dutch Cyber Intelligence through FortiGate backdoors
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Re: China spied on Dutch Cyber Intelligence through FortiGate backdoors
#2Firefox Translations of it says it was known vulnerability:
> The malware found installed a ‘backdoor’ by using a known vulnerability in FortiGate devices. The publication of the MIVD therefore does not describe any new vulnerability in all FortiGate devices.
I could believe factory backdoors in Fortinet products, including bugdoors, but it's even easier to believe commonplace unintended software defects.
Edit: This comment was a response to the HN title "China spied on Dutch Cyber Intelligence through FortiGate backdoors (defensie.nl)". I thought people will tend to interpret "FortiGate backdoor" as meaning an intentional backdoor by the vendor/factory, when that's not what the article seemed to suggest.
Re: China spied on Dutch Cyber Intelligence through FortiGate backdoors
#3The full report is here:
https://www.ncsc.nl/binaries/ncsc/documenten/publicaties/202...
Re: China spied on Dutch Cyber Intelligence through FortiGate backdoors
#4Firefox Translations of it says it was known vulnerability: > The malware found installed a ‘backdoor’ by using a known vulnerability in FortiGate devices. The publication of the MIVD therefore does not describe any new vulnerability in all FortiGate devices. I could believe factory backdoors in Fortinet products, including bugdoors, but it's even easier to believe commonplace unintended software defects. Edit: This…
> it's even easier to believe commonplace unintended software defects
Note the fact that this was actively exploited by the Chinese. That sort of reduces the chance of this being an accident, especially since they've done this before.
Re: China spied on Dutch Cyber Intelligence through FortiGate backdoors
#5The full report is here: https://www.ncsc.nl/binaries/ncsc/documenten/publicaties/202...
As someone not super familiar with security research, this work and the associated report must have cost millions of euro in experienced engineering man-hours to write, right? You can't just put a team of interns on this sort of stuff (of course, not defending is not an option, well, an extremely dangerous one)
Re: China spied on Dutch Cyber Intelligence through FortiGate backdoors
#6The full report is here: https://www.ncsc.nl/binaries/ncsc/documenten/publicaties/202...
As someone not super familiar with security research, this work and the associated report must have cost millions of euro in experienced engineering man-hours to write, right? You can't just put a team of interns on this sort of stuff (of course, not defending is not an option, well, an extremely dangerous one)
It doesn't take that many hours, you are over-estimating by 2.5 order of magnitude
Re: China spied on Dutch Cyber Intelligence through FortiGate backdoors
#7Firefox Translations of it says it was known vulnerability: > The malware found installed a ‘backdoor’ by using a known vulnerability in FortiGate devices. The publication of the MIVD therefore does not describe any new vulnerability in all FortiGate devices. I could believe factory backdoors in Fortinet products, including bugdoors, but it's even easier to believe commonplace unintended software defects. Edit: This…
> it's even easier to believe commonplace unintended software defects Note the fact that this was actively exploited by the Chinese. That sort of reduces the chance of this being an accident, especially since they've done this before.
Commonplace unintended software defects seem to be the overwhelming source of known vulnerabilities. Which I imagine are in everyone's toolkit to exploit.
It's reasonable to be cautious about Fortinet in general, but I don't think the fact that a known vulnerability was exploited suggests that the vulnerability was intentional.
Re: China spied on Dutch Cyber Intelligence through FortiGate backdoors
#8When is Europe going to wake up and realize that China is attacking Europe with all its weights, whether its through Russia's military invasion or through economic attack of dumping of EV and solar that seeks to destroy Europe's car industry?
China Offers Full Support to Russia on Ukraine War https://www.newsweek.com/china-russia-ukraine-war-dong-jun-c...
Re: China spied on Dutch Cyber Intelligence through FortiGate backdoors
#9Firefox Translations of it says it was known vulnerability: > The malware found installed a ‘backdoor’ by using a known vulnerability in FortiGate devices. The publication of the MIVD therefore does not describe any new vulnerability in all FortiGate devices. I could believe factory backdoors in Fortinet products, including bugdoors, but it's even easier to believe commonplace unintended software defects. Edit: This…
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Re: China spied on Dutch Cyber Intelligence through FortiGate backdoors
#10When is Europe going to wake up and realize that China is attacking Europe with all its weights, whether its through Russia's military invasion or through economic attack of dumping of EV and solar that seeks to destroy Europe's car industry? China Offers Full Support to Russia on Ukraine War https://www.newsweek.com/china-russia-ukraine-war-dong-jun-c...
If China supported Russia the war would have been over by now. There is a reason Russia has to buy weapons from North Korea and Iran when China would have been able to provide much more.
China has actually supported Saudi Arabia's war on Yemen's Houthis more than they have supported Russia's war on Ukraine. When Saudi Arabia's F-15s started getting their wings blown off by by Iranian SAMs fired by Houthis it was Chinese drones that started hitting Houthi positions in Yemen.
For some reason there is little awareness about the close Saudi-China alliance here in the West.