For the last few years, Fortinet has been a punching bag for cyber attackers. Month after month, we saw a steady stream of flaws in their routers, firewalls, VPNs, and more.

Palo Alto seems to be taking a little of that pain themselves, recently announcing a flaw in their VPN service that allows an attacker to gain unauthorized access to your network. They've also confirmed this is being actively exploited in the wild.

You may not think much of that all-in-one firewall, router, and VPN device that's probably sitting on a shelf in a dark closet in your office, but you should. While this should be one of many layers of security in your program, it's typically a pretty thick layer. That is, until trivial exploits like these become known.

You may have a great patching program for your Windows workstations, dutifully applying patches in short order after they are released on Patch Tuesday each month. You may even do the same with your servers. But often, these network devices are in their own little world, walled off from the rest of your infrastructure and often forgotten. They run like computers and need patching just the same, though.

So if you haven't taken a look at your network device's console lately, take a moment to do so. In most cases, there should be an automated update mechanism. Make sure that's enabled. If there isn't, you have some digging to do on the vendor's webpage. You also need to set a reminder to revisit for further patching on, at least, a monthly basis.

You could also turn it over to the experts. If you are just winging it yourself with your IT infrastructure, you don't have to. Experts like us can solve this and a whole host of other problems from security to efficiency in your technology. We often have ways to automate the annoying things so you don't have to regularly check and update your "out of sight, out of mind" devices.

References:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/palo-alto-globalprotect-vpn-auth-bypass-flaw-now-exploited-in-attacks/
https://securityaffairs.com/192951/security/u-s-cisa-adds-palo-alto-networks-pan-os-flaw-to-its-known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog.html