Classic Buffer OverflowWeakness · CWE-120

CVE-2026-70465

HIGH · 8.1 CVSS v3.1 Published 2026-08-12
No fix yet
No fix has been published. The vendor has not shipped a fixed release or patch. You remain exposed.
See remediation →
90/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click 7 days old

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
A buffer copy without checking size of input ('classic buffer overflow') vulnerability in Fortinet FortiClientWindows 7.4.0 through 7.4.3, FortiClientWindows 7.2.0 through 7.2.11 may allow an unauthenticated attacker in a position to alter or craft DNS responses to the targeted host to execute arbitrary code via malicious packets.

In the news

Third-party coverage
Trending covered by 1 outlet this week · latest today

Surfaced from public web coverage — external links open in a new tab.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-120

A fixed-size buffer is filled without checking the length of the incoming data, so it overflows into neighbouring memory. This is the classic overflow attackers use to overwrite return addresses and hijack execution. The fix is strict length checks and safe, bounded string and memory functions.

General guidance for the classic buffer overflow class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
High
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Recommended fix Moderate confidence

FortiClientWindows 7.4.4 or later / FortiClientWindows 7.2.12 or later

  1. 1. Verify current FortiClientWindows version by opening FortiClient and navigating to Help > About
  2. 2. For FortiClientWindows 7.4.x users: Upgrade to version 7.4.4 or later
  3. 3. For FortiClientWindows 7.2.x users: Upgrade to version 7.2.12 or later
  4. 4. Download the updated installer from the Fortinet Customer Support Portal (https://support.fortinet.com)
  5. 5. Close FortiClient and any related processes before running the installer
  6. 6. Run the installer with administrator privileges
  7. 7. After installation, verify the version in Help > About to confirm the update was successful
  8. 8. Ensure DNS response filtering is enabled in FortiClient settings for additional protection
Caveat Users should test the new version in a non-production environment first to ensure compatibility with existing VPN configurations and endpoint protection policies

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

No vendor fix exists The vendor has not published a patch for this.

There is no version to upgrade to and no patch to apply. Every affected install stays exposed until the vendor ships a fix — or somebody else builds one.

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Free · runs locally
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2026-70465 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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