Security Resilience

CVE-2023-25608

Fortinet Fortiap-W2 6.0.0 – 7.0.1

Published
13 September 2023
Modified
21 November 2024
Patch / advisory
View advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 5.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0060 47th percentile
Risk Priority 44 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2023-25608 is a medium-severity Incomplete Filtering of One or More Instances of Special Elements (CWE-792) vulnerability in Fortinet Fortiap-W2. Its CVSS base score is 5.5 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Steganography (T1001.002); ranked at the 47th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

An incomplete filtering of one or more instances of special elements vulnerability [CWE-792] in the command line interpreter of FortiAP-W2 7.2.0 through 7.2.1, 7.0.3 through 7.0.5, 7.0.0 through 7.0.1, 6.4 all versions, 6.2 all versions, 6.0 all versions; FortiAP-C 5.4.0…

more

through 5.4.4, 5.2 all versions; FortiAP 7.2.0 through 7.2.1, 7.0.0 through 7.0.5, 6.4 all versions, 6.0 all versions; FortiAP-U 7.0.0, 6.2.0 through 6.2.5, 6.0 all versions, 5.4 all versions may allow an authenticated attacker to read arbitrary files via specially crafted command arguments.

CWE(s)
CWE-792NVD-CWE-Other

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1001.002 Steganography Command And Control
Adversaries may use steganographic techniques to hide command and control traffic to make detection efforts more difficult.
attack.mitre.org →
T1003.001 LSASS Memory Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to access credential material stored in the process memory of the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS).
attack.mitre.org →
T1003.003 NTDS Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to access or create a copy of the Active Directory domain database in order to steal credential information, as well as obtain other information about domain members such as devices, users, and access rights.
attack.mitre.org →
T1003.006 DCSync Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to access credentials and other sensitive information by abusing a Windows Domain Controller's application programming interface (API)(Citation: Microsoft DRSR Dec 2017) (Citation: Microsoft GetNCCChanges) (Citati…
attack.mitre.org →
T1003.008 /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to dump the contents of <code>/etc/passwd</code> and <code>/etc/shadow</code> to enable offline password cracking.
attack.mitre.org →
T1014 Rootkit Stealth
Adversaries may use rootkits to hide the presence of programs, files, network connections, services, drivers, and other system components.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-53680Same product: Fortinet Fortiap
CVE-2025-53870Same product: Fortinet Fortiap
CVE-2024-26012Same product: Fortinet Fortiap
CVE-2023-36634Same product: Fortinet Fortiap-U
CVE-2025-54972Same vendor: Fortinet
CVE-2025-64157Same vendor: Fortinet
CVE-2026-39811Same vendor: Fortinet
CVE-2024-45324Same vendor: Fortinet
CVE-2024-46669Same vendor: Fortinet
CVE-2023-29181Same vendor: Fortinet

Affected Assets

fortinet
fortiap
6.0.0 — 7.0.6 · 7.2.0 — 7.2.2
fortinet
fortiap-c
5.2.0 — 5.4.5
fortinet
fortiap-u
7.0.0 · 5.4.0 — 6.2.6
fortinet
fortiap-w2
6.0.0 — 7.0.1 · 7.0.3 — 7.0.6 · 7.2.0 — 7.2.2

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 partial match
blocks

Secure SDLC practices directly require complete input filtering and validation to prevent this class of weakness.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

A.8.25 Secure development life cycle partial match
blocks

A.8.25 mandates secure SDLC practices including secure coding guidelines, security requirements, checkpoints, testing (scans/penetration), and developer training that reach many but not all filtering defects before downstream use; a bounded remainder (e.g. incomplete coverage of obscure element variants, second-order flows, or non-software system boundaries) can still be exploited.

A.8.26 Application security requirements partial match
blocks

A.8.26 requires identifying and specifying requirements (incl. resilience against SQL injections, input validation, output controls, and related protections), which can lead to preventing incomplete filtering of special elements, but only reaches a minority slice since it is a requirements-gathering process whose effect depends on downstream implementation by other controls.

A.8.27 Secure system architecture and engineering principles partial match
blocks

A.8.27 mandates security-by-design principles including data validation/sanitization, distrust-external-input, secure architecture reviews against attack patterns, and defense-in-depth; this reaches some but not most instances of incomplete special-element filtering (a code-level neutralization defect), with the bulk left to implementation rigor in A.8.28 or specific testing in A.8.29.

A.8.28 Secure coding partial match
prevents

Secure coding standards require complete sanitization of special elements before downstream processing.

A.8.29 Security testing in development and acceptance partial match
finds

Security testing in development and acceptance can detect incomplete filtering but does not itself implement the fix.

A.8.8 Management of technical vulnerabilities partial match
removes

References