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CVE-2016-1909

82
FAUCET Score

CVE-2016-1909 is a critical vulnerability affecting multiple Fortinet products, including FortiAnalyzer, FortiSwitch, FortiCache, and FortiOS, due to a hardcoded passphrase for the Fortimanager_Access account. This flaw allows remote unauthenticated attackers to gain administrative access via SSH. With a CVSS score of 9.8 (Critical), the vulnerability presents a severe risk of complete compromise (confidentiality, integrity, and availability). While not listed on CISA's KEV catalog, public exploit modules exist, including a Metasploit auxiliary module and an ExploitDB entry, indicating readily available exploitation tools, despite limited community discussion or media coverage.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
<= 4.3.16CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:fortinet:fortios:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
5.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:fortinet:fortios:5.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
5.0.0CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:fortinet:fortios:5.0.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
5.0.1CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:fortinet:fortios:5.0.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
5.0.2CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:fortinet:fortios:5.0.2:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 3.0

9.8CRITICAL

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality Impact
HIGH
Integrity Impact
HIGH
Availability Impact
HIGH
Exploitability Score
3.9
Impact Score
5.9
CvssVersion
3.0

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
71.27%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
99.3%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-25
Model: v2026.06.15
Metasploit: Fortinet SSH Backdoor Scanner · Jan 9, 2016
ExploitDB: EDB-43386 · Jan 9, 2016
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.7127 is in the 98th percentile among its peer group of 36,833 CVEs.

Social Chatter

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.1 Reddit, 0.3 Bluesky, 0.3 Mastodon, and 2.4 GitHub mentions.

Media Mentions

No media coverage found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.3 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.

Remediation

Remediation records are not available for this CVE.

References

blog.fortinet.com / post/brief-statement-regarding-issues-found-with-fortios
packetstormsecurity.com / files/135225/FortiGate-OS-5.0.7-SSH-Backdoor.html
Exploit
seclists.org / fulldisclosure/2016/Jan/26
Exploit
twitter.com / esizkur/status/686842135501508608
exploit-db.com / exploits/39224
Exploit
fortiguard.com / advisory/multiple-products-ssh-undocumented-login-vulnerability
securitytracker.com / id/1034663