Disclaimer: The goal of this post is not to bring the pitchforks out and talk about CyberSecurity vendors and their security based on CVEs. No, I do not think Cisco is an insecure company and I do think they are doing a great thing for the community by being up front, disclosing and fixing vulnerabilities discovered in their products.

This is in direct reference to the following post in r/sysadmin about 2 weeks ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1wwlgqq/todays\reminder\that\every\security\appliance\is/

You will notice in this post that I made one of the top comments to bring awareness to the lack of attention that is given to CVEs when it is a non-Fortinet product. Well, it just happened again.

Cisco released a 9.8 CVE for their Secure Mail appliance on October 14. The details are available at the following link: http://sec.cloudapps.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-esa-afw-zqYJkjxp

The content in this is important but irrelevant to my point. In the release of this vulnerability, there are only 4 mentions (by my search of "CVE-2026-76519") of this:

https://www.reddit.com/search/?q=%22CVE-2026-76519%22&cId=3d232678-6f60-4ffb-940a-de3665695be1&iId=6d9cd08d-e00c-46e4-bae4-638f39723fe0

If you do a search of the FortiMail CVE, you will see there are 17 mentions.

https://www.reddit.com/search/?q=%22CVE-2026-104286%22&cId=0e04f247-a490-4114-a405-b6ccfac473ce&iId=fd67515e-4b1e-44cd-bc8f-a4bc68fb59f2

And within some of these posts, you will see the "insecure CVE brigade" coming in force.

Now I know some time has elapsed over the results of this search, but they all happened within 4 days of each other while the vast majority of these mentions happened within 2 days (the same time period was this Cisco search).

All that being said, my point is that it is very interesting that the same level of coverage is not being extended even when on paper, the two vulnerabilities being compared look very similar. Also, you would think it is more coverage worthy when a second critical CVE was found in the same product within the same month.

Putting on my tin foil hat, I will say, I believe there are other powers at work (besides just the goal of sharing information) to target certain vendors for whatever reason to paint them in a worse off light than others.

However, the important piece in all of this, is to reiterate that the companies who are transparent about CVEs and actually fix them, are the ones who deserve the trust of protecting the digital assets we need to secure.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

An improper neutralization of special elements used in an SQL Command ("SQL Injection") vulnerability [CWE-89] vulnerability in Fortinet FortiMail 7.6.0 through 7.6.3, FortiMail 7.4.0 through 7.4.5, FortiMail 7.2.0 through 7.2.8 allows an authenticated attacker to execute unauthorized code or commands via specifically crafted HTTP or HTTPS requests.

FortiMail has a 9.8 unauthenticated path traversal that allows arbitrary file writes and potentially code execution. Fortinet says it’s already being exploited.

Some patched versions: upcoming.

Security appliances continue their long tradition of occasionally becoming the thing you need security from.

An improper limitation of a pathname to a restricted directory ('path traversal') vulnerability in Fortinet FortiMail 8.0.0 through 8.0.1, FortiMail 7.6.0 through 7.6.6, FortiMail 7.4.0 through 7.4.8, FortiMail 7.2.0 through 7.2.9 may allow an unauthenticated attacker to write arbitrary files on the underlying system via crafted HTTP or HTTPS requests.

An improper neutralization of special elements used in an SQL Command ("SQL Injection&") vulnerability [CWE-89] vulnerability in Fortinet FortiMail 7.6.0 through 7.6.3, FortiMail 7.4.0 through 7.4.5, FortiMail 7.2.0 through 7.2.8 allows an authenticated privileged attacker to execute unauthorized code or commands via specifically crafted HTTP or HTTPS requests.

A cleartext storage of sensitive information vulnerability [CWE-312] vulnerability in Fortinet FortiMail 7.6.0 through 7.6.2, FortiMail 7.4.0 through 7.4.4, FortiMail 7.2.0 through 7.2.7, FortiMail 7.0.0 through 7.0.8, FortiRecorder 7.2.0 through 7.2.3, FortiRecorder 7.0 all versions, FortiRecorder 6.4 all versions, FortiVoice 7.2.0, FortiVoice 7.0.0 through 7.0.6 may allow an authenticated malicious administrator to obtain user's secrets via CLI commands. Practical exploitability is limited by conditions out of the control of the attacker: An admin must log in to the targeted device.

An improper neutralization of crlf sequences ('crlf injection') vulnerability in Fortinet FortiMail 7.6.0 through 7.6.3, FortiMail 7.4.0 through 7.4.5, FortiMail 7.2 all versions, FortiMail 7.0 all versions may allow an attacker to inject headers in the response via convincing a user to click on a specifically crafted link

A insertion of sensitive information into sent data vulnerability in Fortinet FortiMail 7.4.0 through 7.4.2, FortiMail 7.2.0 through 7.2.6, FortiMail 7.0 all versions, FortiManager 7.6.0 through 7.6.1, FortiManager 7.4.1 through 7.4.3, FortiManager Cloud 7.4.1 through 7.4.3, FortiNDR 7.6.0 through 7.6.1, FortiNDR 7.4.0 through 7.4.8, FortiNDR 7.2 all versions, FortiNDR 7.1 all versions, FortiNDR 7.0 all versions, FortiNDR 1.5 all versions, FortiOS 7.6.0, FortiOS 7.4.0 through 7.4.4, FortiOS 7.2.0 through 7.2.8, FortiOS 7.0.0 through 7.0.15, FortiOS 6.4.0 through 6.4.15, FortiOS 6.2 all versions, FortiOS 6.0 all versions, FortiPAM 1.3 all versions, FortiPAM 1.2 all versions, FortiPAM 1.1 all versions, FortiPAM 1.0 all versions, FortiProxy 7.4.0 through 7.4.4, FortiProxy 7.2.0 through 7.2.10, FortiProxy 7.0 all versions, FortiProxy 2.0 all versions, FortiProxy 01.02 all versions, FortiProxy 1.2 all versions, FortiProxy 01.01 all versions, FortiProxy 1.1 all versions, FortiProxy 01.00 all versions, FortiRecorder 7.2.0 through 7.2.1, FortiRecorder 7.0.0 through 7.0.4, FortiTester 7.4.0 through 7.4.2, FortiTester 7.3 all versions, FortiTester 7.2 all versions, FortiTester 7.1 all versions, FortiTester 7.0 all versions, FortiTester 4.2 all versions, FortiVoice 7.0.0 through 7.0.4, FortiVoice 6.4.0 through 6.4.9, FortiVoice 6.0.7 through 6.0.12, FortiWeb 7.6.0, FortiWeb 7.4.0 through 7.4.4, FortiWeb 7.2 all versions, FortiWeb 7.0 all versions, FortiWeb 6.4 all versions allows attacker to disclose sensitive information via specially crafted packets.

Multiple relative path traversal vulnerabilities [CWE-23] vulnerability in Fortinet FortiCamera 2.1 all versions, FortiCamera 2.0.0, FortiCamera 1.1 all versions, FortiCamera 1.0 all versions, FortiMail 7.6.0 through 7.6.1, FortiMail 7.4.0 through 7.4.3, FortiMail 7.2 all versions, FortiMail 7.0 all versions, FortiMail 6.4 all versions, FortiNDR 7.6.0 through 7.6.1, FortiNDR 7.4.0 through 7.4.6, FortiNDR 7.2 all versions, FortiNDR 7.1 all versions, FortiNDR 7.0 all versions, FortiRecorder 7.2.0 through 7.2.1, FortiRecorder 7.0.0 through 7.0.4, FortiRecorder 6.4 all versions, FortiVoice 7.0.0 through 7.0.3, FortiVoice 6.4.0 through 6.4.9, FortiVoice 6.0 all versions may allow a privileged attacker to read files from the underlying filesystem via crafted CLI requests.

A stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability [CWE-121] vulnerability in Fortinet FortiCamera 2.1.0 through 2.1.3, FortiCamera 2.0 all versions, FortiCamera 1.1 all versions, FortiMail 7.6.0 through 7.6.2, FortiMail 7.4.0 through 7.4.4, FortiMail 7.2.0 through 7.2.7, FortiMail 7.0.0 through 7.0.8, FortiNDR 7.6.0, FortiNDR 7.4.0 through 7.4.7, FortiNDR 7.2.0 through 7.2.4, FortiNDR 7.0.0 through 7.0.6, FortiRecorder 7.2.0 through 7.2.3, FortiRecorder 7.0.0 through 7.0.5, FortiRecorder 6.4.0 through 6.4.5, FortiVoice 7.2.0, FortiVoice 7.0.0 through 7.0.6, FortiVoice 6.4.0 through 6.4.10 allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code or commands via sending HTTP requests with specially crafted hash cookie.

An improper access control vulnerability in FortiMail version 7.4.0 configured with RADIUS authentication and remotewildcard enabled may allow a remote unauthenticated attacker to bypass admin login via a crafted HTTP request.

A stack-buffer overflow vulnerability [CWE-121] in FortiMail CLI may allow a privileged attacker to execute arbitrary code or commands via specifically crafted CLI commands.

CVE-2025-26466A flaw was found in the OpenSSH package. For each ping packet the SSH server receives, a pong packet is allocated in a memory buffer and stored in a queue of packages. It is only freed when the server/client key exchange has finished. A malicious client may keep sending such packages, leading to an uncontrolled increase in memory consumption on the server side. Consequently, the server may become unavailable, resulting in a denial of service attack.

A flaw was found in the OpenSSH package. For each ping packet the SSH server receives, a pong packet is allocated in a memory buffer and stored in a queue of packages. It is only freed when the server/client key exchange has finished. A malicious client may keep sending such packages, leading to an uncontrolled increase in memory consumption on the server side. Consequently, the server may become unavailable, resulting in a denial of service attack.

A externally controlled reference to a resource in another sphere vulnerability in Fortinet allows attacker to poison web caches via crafted HTTP requests, where the Host header points to an arbitrary webserver

A security regression (CVE-2006-5051) was discovered in OpenSSH's server (sshd). There is a race condition which can lead sshd to handle some signals in an unsafe manner. An unauthenticated, remote attacker may be able to trigger it by failing to authenticate within a set time period.

Summary

Terrapin is a prefix truncation attack targeting the SSH protocol. More precisely, Terrapin breaks the integrity of SSH's secure channel. By carefully adjusting the sequence numbers during the handshake, an attacker can remove an arbitrary amount of messages sent by the client or server at the beginning of the secure channel without the client or server noticing it.

Mitigations

To mitigate this protocol vulnerability, OpenSSH suggested a so-called "strict kex" which alters the SSH handshake to ensure a Man-in-the-Middle attacker cannot introduce unauthenticated messages as well as convey sequence number manipulation across handshakes.

Warning: To take effect, both the client and server must support this countermeasure.

As a stop-gap measure, peers may also (temporarily) disable the affected algorithms and use unaffected alternatives like AES-GCM instead until patches are available.

Details

The SSH specifications of ChaCha20-Poly1305 (chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com) and Encrypt-then-MAC (-etm@openssh.com MACs) are vulnerable against an arbitrary prefix truncation attack (a.k.a. Terrapin attack). This allows for an extension negotiation downgrade by stripping the SSHMSGEXTINFO sent after the first message after SSHMSGNEWKEYS, downgrading security, and disabling attack countermeasures in some versions of OpenSSH. When targeting Encrypt-then-MAC, this attack requires the use of a CBC cipher to be practically exploitable due to the internal workings of the cipher mode. Additionally, this novel attack technique can be used to exploit previously unexploitable implementation flaws in a Man-in-the-Middle scenario.

The attack works by an attacker injecting an arbitrary number of SSHMSGIGNORE messages during the initial key exchange and consequently removing the same number of messages just after the initial key exchange has concluded. This is possible due to missing authentication of the excess SSHMSGIGNORE messages and the fact that the implicit sequence numbers used within the SSH protocol are only checked after the initial key exchange.

In the case of ChaCha20-Poly1305, the attack is guaranteed to work on every connection as this cipher does not maintain an internal state other than the message's sequence number. In the case of Encrypt-Then-MAC, practical exploitation requires the use of a CBC cipher; while theoretical integrity is broken for all ciphers when using this mode, message processing will fail at the application layer for CTR and stream ciphers.

For more details see https://terrapin-attack.com.

Impact

This attack targets the specification of ChaCha20-Poly1305 (chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com) and Encrypt-then-MAC (-etm@openssh.com), which are widely adopted by well-known SSH implementations and can be considered de-facto standard. These algorithms can be practically exploited; however, in the case of Encrypt-Then-MAC, we additionally require the use of a CBC cipher. As a consequence, this attack works against all well-behaving SSH implementations supporting either of those algorithms and can be used to downgrade (but not fully strip) connection security in case SSH extension negotiation (RFC8308) is supported. The attack may also enable attackers to exploit certain implementation flaws in a man-in-the-middle (MitM) scenario.

An incorrect authorization vulnerability [CWE-863] in FortiMail webmail version 7.2.0 through 7.2.2, version 7.0.0 through 7.0.5 and below 6.4.7 allows an authenticated attacker to login on other users accounts from the same web domain via crafted HTTP or HTTPs requests.

A improper restriction of excessive authentication attempts vulnerability [CWE-307] in Fortinet FortiMail version 6.4.0, version 6.2.0 through 6.2.4 and before 6.0.9 allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to partially exhaust CPU and memory via sending numerous HTTP requests to the login form.

A improper neutralization of input during web page generation ('cross-site scripting') in Fortinet FortiMail version 7.0.1 and 7.0.0, version 6.4.5 and below, version 6.3.7 and below, version 6.0.11 and below allows attacker to execute unauthorized code or commands via crafted HTTP GET requests to the FortiGuard URI protection service.

An improper authentication vulnerability in FortiMail 5.4.10, 6.0.7, 6.2.2 and earlier and FortiVoiceEntreprise 6.0.0 and 6.0.1 may allow a remote unauthenticated attacker to access the system as a legitimate user by requesting a password change via the user interface.

An unauthenticated XSS vulnerability with FortiMail 5.0.0 - 5.2.9 and 5.3.0 - 5.3.8 could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary scripts in the security context of the browser of a victim logged in FortiMail, assuming the victim is social engineered into clicking an URL crafted by the attacker.

Multiple cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities in admin/FEAdmin.html in Fortinet FortiMail before 4.3.4 on FortiMail Identity-Based Encryption (IBE) appliances allow user-assisted remote attackers to inject arbitrary web script or HTML via (1) the Add field for the Black List under Antispam Management User Preferences or (2) the User name field for the Personal Black/White List in the AntiSpam section.