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Fencer Vulns
high 7.1

CVE-2019-16155 json

A privilege escalation vulnerability in FortiClient for Linux 6.2.1 and below may allow a user with low privilege to overwrite system files…

published 2020-02-07 6 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2019-6976

cvss
7.1
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 38%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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.

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2 y ago

Exploit prediction

0.44% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 38% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • danishcyberdefence.dk https://danishcyberdefence.dk/blog/forticlient_linux referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 7.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 6.6 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:C/A:C

Affected products

  • Fortinet Fortinet FortiClientLinux

Classification

Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.