By Raphael Satter
Researchers say a sweeping hacking campaign targeting devices made by Fortinet has led to compromises across the internet, with evidence of password theft at Fortune 500 companies and government agencies in more than 15 countries.
Most of the affected devices were in the United States, India, and Taiwan, according to Hudson Rock, a firm that tracks cybercrime. Hudson Rock described the scale of the spy campaign as “staggering.”
“The scale of this breach touches nearly every sector of the global economy, sparing no industry,” it said in a blog post published on Wednesday. The firm said that some 75,000 Fortinet firewall and VPN devices – tools that companies use to protect their networks and allow employees to log in remotely – had been compromised, potentially allowing the hackers to penetrate deeper into these organizations and steal data.
In a statement, Fortinet said it was aware of a campaign to steal login credentials from its firewall and VPN devices.
The company said that hackers were drawing on data “from previous incidents” and guessing passwords repeatedly – a technique known as “bruteforcing” to break into target networks or devices.
Fortinet said the malicious cyber activity was “not related to any recent incident or advisory.” The company did not immediately respond to questions about the scope of the campaign uncovered by researchers, and Reuters could not establish how many password thefts led to intrusions at the affected companies.
Officials at the U.S. cyber defense agency CISA, the FBI, and the Office of the National Cyber Director did not immediately return emails. Cybersecurity officials in India and Taiwan did not immediately return emails.
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