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VulnerabilityPublished Updated

CVE-2023-41841: Fortinet FortiOS · Escalation of Privilege

Affects Fortinet FortiOSSource CVE Database V5

0

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.4 High.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 14:05 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score
7.4High
How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.
EPSS
1.0% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 64% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H/E:U/RL:X/RC:X

Exploitation evidence

  1. Disclosed: evidence found.

    CVE published 10 Oct 2023

  2. Detectable: no evidence on record.

    No public nuclei template indexed

  3. Weaponised: no evidence on record.

    No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB

  4. Exploited in the wild: no evidence on record.

    Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation

  5. Observed by OffSeq Mirage: no evidence on record.

    No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

What to do

Affected software

ProductAffectedFixed in
Fortinet FortiOSAffected
  • =7.2.0
  • =7.0.0
Fixed in–

AI-suggested

  1. Immediately review and restrict the assignment of the prof-admin profile to only the most trusted and necessary personnel to minimize the attack surface.
  2. Monitor administrative activities and logs for unusual or unauthorized actions performed by prof-admin users to detect potential exploitation attempts early.
  3. Apply Fortinet’s official patches or updates as soon as they become available; monitor Fortinet security advisories regularly for patch releases addressing CVE-2023-41841.
  4. Implement network segmentation and access controls to limit exposure of FortiOS management interfaces to only trusted networks and administrators.
  5. Employ multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all administrative access to FortiOS devices to reduce the risk of credential compromise.
  6. Conduct regular security audits and penetration tests focusing on administrative privilege management and FortiOS configurations.
  7. Consider deploying additional monitoring tools that can detect anomalous changes in firewall rules or configuration to quickly identify exploitation attempts.
  8. Educate administrators on the risks associated with privilege escalation vulnerabilities and enforce strict change management procedures for FortiOS devices.

Description

CVE-2023-41841 is a high-severity privilege escalation vulnerability affecting Fortinet FortiOS versions 7.0.0 through 7.0.11 and 7.2.0 through 7.2.4. The flaw allows an attacker with prof-admin profile privileges to perform unauthorized elevated actions due to improper authorization checks.

References

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