CVE-2021-44169

A improper initialization in Fortinet FortiClient (Windows) version 6.0.10 and below, version 6.2.9 and below, version 6.4.7 and below, version 7.0.3 and below allows attacker to gain administrative privileges via placing a malicious executable inside the FortiClient installers directory.

Weakness

The product does not initialize or incorrectly initializes a resource, which might leave the resource in an unexpected state when it is accessed or used.

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

• Use a language that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.
• For example, in Java, if the programmer does not explicitly initialize a variable, then the code could produce a compile-time error (if the variable is local) or automatically initialize the variable to the default value for the variable’s type. In Perl, if explicit initialization is not performed, then a default value of undef is assigned, which is interpreted as 0, false, or an equivalent value depending on the context in which the variable is accessed.

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/26.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/29.html

References

• https://fortiguard.com/psirt/FG-IR-21-238