CVE-2023-40716 — An improper neutralization of special elements used in an OS command vulnerabili

An improper neutralization of special elements used in an OS command vulnerability [CWE-78] in the command line interpreter of FortiTester 2.3.0 through 7.2.3 may allow an authenticated attacker to execute unauthorized commands via specifically crafted arguments when running exec

01What is this vulnerability?

An improper neutralization of special elements used in an OS command vulnerability [CWE-78] in the command line interpreter of FortiTester 2.3.0 through 7.2.3 may allow an authenticated attacker to execute unauthorized commands via specifically crafted arguments when running execute restore/backup .

02Affected products

No structured affected-product list available — see references below for vendor advisories.

03Active exploitation status

Not currently listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. EPSS is the best forward-looking signal — see the EPSS row above.

04Recommended remediation

• Patch to a fixed version listed in the vendor advisory (see references below).
• Mitigate with WAF rules, network egress filters, or feature flags where the patch is not yet available.
• Hunt historical logs for exploitation indicators — see Detection signatures below.

05Technical details

For the full vendor write-up, exploit chains, and reference implementations, see the references list in section 09.

06Detection signatures

Ask SARA in chat to draft a starting detection for this CVE in your stack of choice.

07Related CVEs

No directly-cited follow-up CVEs in the KB record for this advisory. The references list in section 09 carries the vendor cross-references.

08Timeline

• Published: 2023-12-13 (2y 7m ago)
• Last modified: 2026-06-17

09References

No additional references available in the KB record.