Fortinet ships FortiOS 8.0 — and firewalls are under attack
Fortinet released FortiOS 8.0 with AI governance and quantum‑safe features while a wave of exploits targeting FortiGate firewalls was reported — raising urgency on integrating advanced security controls into hybrid stacks announced and reported. The dual push — new capabilities and active exploitation — tightens the security window for platform teams.
Fortinet announced FortiOS 8.0 fortinet.com at Fortinet Accelerate 2026 in Las Vegas on March 10, 2026, positioning the release as the next major version of the Fortinet Security Fabric. investor.fortinet.com The release bundles named capabilities such as Secure AI Controls, fabric‑based AI agents, flexible SASE deployment options and simplified SD‑WAN orchestration, with FortiView extended to show AI attack surface and shadow‑AI telemetry. fortinet.com FortiOS 8.0 also expands "quantum‑safe" protections by rolling out post‑quantum cryptographic support for management channels, VPNs and encrypted‑traffic inspection, including new post‑quantum certificate options referenced in vendor and industry coverage. fortinet.com The FortiGate SSO authentication bypasses that sparked the threat wave were disclosed by Fortinet on December 9, 2025, in PSIRT advisory FG‑IR‑25‑647 fortiguard.fortinet.com and Arctic Wolf reported observing malicious SSO logins against FortiGate appliances beginning December 12, 2025. arcticwolf.com CISA added CVE‑2025‑59718 to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on December 16, 2025, setting a remediation due date of December 23, 2025 for federal agencies, while NVD and other trackers flagged the flaw as critical (CVSS scores reported between 9.1 and 9.8). nvd.nist.gov Security vendors documented active abuse patterns — automated account creation, unauthorized VPN configuration changes and export of firewall configs — and multiple reports indicated attackers were able to exploit or bypass initial patches, prompting ongoing advisory updates from Fortinet through late January 2026. securityweek.com
