Trump's writing about technology apparently?
I feel it only fair to point out for the sake of accuracy in this world of “fake news” and questionable statistics that this post’s targeting of Fortinet is pretty unfair. The firmware in question (4.3) went out of support in 2014, and the issue was found in 4.3.13 and patched in all subsequent builds. Frankly if an IT admin is not keeping on top of their security patching at such a fundamental level then they need to be put into a dark room, have the door bricked up, wall paper applied and forgotten about. In the real world security engineers are aware that there are unsavoury people out there whose sole purpose is to get in to our little fiefdoms and wreak havoc, so we spend all our lives updating firmware, installing patches, deploying new versions, and inconveniencing users to try and stay one step ahead.
To say that this will “flay Fortinet first” given they fixed the issue 3 years ago and have since end of supported the entire 4.x line to move customers to the 5.x line is like writing an article entitled “Londoners dying of cholera and typhoid” focusing on the practice of slop buckets and failing to mention that time has passed, things have developed, and improvements have been made. As we’re aware London has sewers and deaths by cholera and typhoid are few and far between these days cos we aren’t tipping buckets of excrement out the window.
I know very well the pain involved in maintaining a secure environment and Fortinet aren’t perfect, but this article is simply inaccurate and needs to be fact checked by someone not working in the Trump White House.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
