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Group-IB diagram of the k0t attack chain from public scanning of FortiGate, FortiWeb and Palo Alto GlobalProtect devices through OpenConnect footholds, Active Directory enumeration, RMM persistence and data exfiltration.
Diagram: Group-IB, overview of the infection chain observed for k0t, Oct 21, 2026 (fair use).

Threat Intel

Group-IB Says Initial Access Broker k0t Is Hitting FortiGate, FortiWeb and Palo Alto GlobalProtect Edge Devices, Then Selling Access Linked to Qilin and The Gentlemen

Group-IB Threat Intelligence and NyxLab say the operators used FOFA and ZoomEye target lists, a FortiWeb path-traversal exploit, FortiGate brute force and a GlobalProtect cookie-forgery tool to establish OpenConnect VPN footholds, then persisted with MeshCentral and AdaptixC2 while building a stash of more than 70,000 edge and LDAP credentials.

Priya Shah, Threat IntelSingapore6 min read

SINGAPORE - A threat actor tracked as k0t is turning internet-facing firewalls and VPN portals into a wholesale access pipeline, according to research Group-IB Threat Intelligence published on Oct. 21 with NyxLab. The operators scan for exposed Fortinet and Palo Alto appliances, break in, decrypt stored secrets and hand persistent remote access to other criminals, the researchers said.

"Artifacts from this investigation also indicate that operators in this campaign have obtained access to numerous organizations worldwide, and have attempted to further compromise some victims, resulting in persistent remote access and data exfiltration," Group-IB wrote. The company said more than 70,000 exposed credentials associated with network devices and LDAP dumps were recovered in the investigation and were not linked to other previously reported threat actors, including the FortiBleed cluster from earlier this year.

Group-IB said many compromised organizations later appeared on leak sites for the Qilin and The Gentlemen ransomware groups. "At this point of the investigation, the relationship between the campaign operators and these ransomware groups, including any direct affiliation, is still unconfirmed," it wrote, while assessing that the operators are "likely to be acting as Initial Access Brokers (IABs)." A deeper technical report is planned later.

Scan first, then break the edge

The researchers said k0t picks targets with FOFA, ZoomEye and underground services that sell product-filtered IP lists, then sorts candidates by country. Public forum posts under aliases including Member19 and CryptoFeel show him seeking premium FOFA access and bulk exports in ip:port format for automated tools. Stated geographic priorities begin with the United States and Canada, then Europe and selected Asia-Pacific markets, Group-IB said.

Group-IB world map of unique domains observed in the k0t campaign dataset, with Asia Pacific and Latin America as the largest shares.
Map: Group-IB, victimology by unique domain geography, Oct 21, 2026 (fair use).Group-IB said the distribution may reflect exposed devices more than deliberate regional targeting.

Initial access into Fortinet environments relies on a custom script named FortiGate Security Scanner, stored as fort.py or fortnew.py, Group-IB said. For every target it first tries CVE-2025-64446, a FortiWeb relative path traversal that lets an unauthenticated attacker run administrative commands. The tool posts to /api/v2.0/cmdb/system/admin%3f/../../../../../cgi-bin/fwbcgi with a forged CGIINFO header impersonating the built-in admin account "prof_admin," then creates a local administrator with a random eight-character username and password, the prof_admin profile and a trusted-host range of 0.0.0.0/0.

When that fails, the script falls back to brute force against the FortiGate REST API, using combined wordlists that include usernames such as admin, fortinet and fgtsecure and passwords such as admin, fortigate and F0rt!n3t123. A FortiGate lockout response (code 2) parks the host for 60 seconds, which Group-IB noted matches the appliance's default lockout window. With the --parse-configs flag set, a successful login downloads the configuration and decrypts stored secrets with the default FortiOS AES key tracked as CVE-2019-6693, recovering LDAP, Active Directory, administrator and local-user credentials.

For Palo Alto GlobalProtect, Group-IB said the operators use a tool named CVE-2026-0257 PAN-OS GlobalProtect Scanner + VPN Connect, written by a developer calling themselves BeiDou. It forges an authentication-override cookie by encrypting the string "admin;;Windows;;[TIMESTAMP];0.0.0.0" with a public key from the target's TLS certificate, posts the cookie with an empty password to /ssl-vpn/login.esp, then feeds a successful cookie into OpenConnect to establish a VPN session.

Group-IB screenshot of the console for the CVE-2026-0257 PAN-OS GlobalProtect Scanner + VPN Connect tool in --vuln mode, listing vulnerable targets for selection.
Screenshot: Group-IB, CVE-2026-0257 PAN-OS GlobalProtect Scanner + VPN Connect in --vuln mode, Oct 21, 2026 (fair use).

Persistence, AD theft and exfiltration

Once on the network, Group-IB said, the operators run NetExec, SoftPerfect, Impacket scripts including GetUserSPNs, secretsdump and noPac, Kerbrute, PetitPotam and Mimikatz. Persistence includes OpenConnect, MeshAgents controlled through MeshCentral, AdaptixC2, Atera, Teramind, AnyDesk and ngrok.

At the time of analysis, a MeshCentral server at mesh.buttruyen.com held 28 active device groups with 84 compromised devices, while artifacts showed 100 other groups that had since been removed, Group-IB said. Agents were hosted on agent.afahimsa.top. The console had agentAutoApprove, agentAutoCreateDevice, IgnoreAgentHashCheck and agentInviteCodes enabled so newly installed agents enrolled without operator intervention. AdaptixC2 team servers were seen at 64.94.85.14:4321 and 168.100.11.99 on BitLaunch (AS399629), with agents staged as a fake installer named clear-thinking_61.92.4_INSTALL.exe from 162.33.178.213:8888 and sthyjk.com:8443. Exfiltration used Rclone into Wasabi S3 buckets and MEGA drives.

Group-IB screenshot of the MeshCentral login page at mesh.buttruyen.com used for k0t persistence.
Screenshot: Group-IB, MeshCentral login page at mesh[.]buttruyen[.]com, Oct 21, 2026 (fair use).

A comparison with the earlier FortiBleed activity found "a negligible overlap in compromised data," Group-IB said, assessing k0t as a separate dataset or related access operation within the broader FortiBleed-related activity. Accounts from the Asia-Pacific region accounted for 37.6 percent of unique domains in the campaign dataset, the largest regional share.

What defenders should hunt

  • Treat a compromised edge appliance as a possible enterprise credential disclosure. Group-IB said responders should assess downstream identity exposure, rotate affected credentials, revoke sessions and review subsequent access.
  • Confirm patch and exposure status for FortiGate, FortiWeb and GlobalProtect, and remove management interfaces from the open internet where possible.
  • Hunt unexpected local administrator creation, trusted-host changes to 0.0.0.0/0, configuration exports, lockout-and-retry patterns and administration from unusual sources on Fortinet devices.
  • Search GlobalProtect and VPN logs for unusual client characteristics and newly observed source infrastructure, including activity consistent with authentication-override cookie abuse of CVE-2026-0257.
  • On Windows and Active Directory, hunt NetExec, Impacket, noPac, Kerbrute, PetitPotam and Mimikatz use, plus unauthorized MeshAgent, MeshCentral, AdaptixC2, Atera, Teramind, AnyDesk and ngrok installations.
  • Enable FortiGate private-data-encryption with an operator-defined key so configurations are not decryptable with the default AES key tracked as CVE-2019-6693, and rotate LDAP and directory bind accounts used by edge appliances.
  • Investigate unexpected Rclone transfers to Wasabi S3 or MEGA after credential access or broad file enumeration.

Sources:


Priya Shah covers threat intelligence, intrusion analysis, and adversary tradecraft for SOCtember from Singapore.

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