KEV Lag Tracker → CVE-2025-68686. Data verified against the official CISA KEV catalog and the National Vulnerability Database.
CISA added CVE-2025-68686 (Fortinet FortiOS) to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on July 27, 2026. It was publicly known for 167 days before CISA confirmed active exploitation. A KEV listing is CISA’s official confirmation that a vulnerability is being exploited in the wild.
The Record
| CVE | CVE-2025-68686 |
| Vendor / product | Fortinet FortiOS |
| Vulnerability | Fortinet FortiOS Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor Vulnerability |
| CVSS base score | 5.9 |
| EPSS probability the day before the KEV listing | 0.48% (38.5% percentile) |
| NVD publication date | February 10, 2026 |
| Added to CISA KEV | July 27, 2026 |
| Lag (public → KEV listing) | 167 days |
| Federal patch deadline | August 10, 2026 |
| Known ransomware use | No |
Measured against the 1674 entries in our tracker with verified publication dates, CVE-2025-68686 was flagged faster than 56% of them.
What CISA Reported
CISA describes the flaw as follows: “Fortinet FortiOS contains an exposure of sensitive information to an unauthorized actor vulnerability. This may allow a remote unauthenticated attacker to bypass the patch developed for the symbolic link persistency mechanism observed in some post-exploit cases, via crafted HTTP requests. An attacker would need first to have compromised the product via another vulnerability, at filesystem level.”
Federal Patch Deadline
Under Binding Operational Directive rules, U.S. federal agencies must remediate CVE-2025-68686 by August 10, 2026 — a 14-day remediation window from the KEV listing date. Private organizations are not bound by that deadline; CISA treats it as the benchmark for how urgently a confirmed-exploited flaw should be patched.
What EPSS Forecast Before the Confirmation
The EPSS forecast (FIRST’s daily estimate of the probability a CVE will be exploited within 30 days) put CVE-2025-68686 at 0.48% on the day before CISA confirmed active exploitation — the 38.5% percentile of all scored CVEs that day. That places it outside the top 10% of EPSS risk on the eve of confirmation — a patch queue ordered by EPSS alone would have left it for later.
| EPSS for CVE-2025-68686 | Value |
|---|---|
| Probability the day before the KEV listing | 0.48% |
| Percentile the day before the KEV listing | 38.5% |
| Probability today (August 24, 2026) | 29.15% |
| Percentile today | 98.0% |
Today’s figure is not evidence that the forecast worked: EPSS reacts to the KEV listing itself, so the score for any confirmed-exploited CVE tends to rise after CISA acts. Only the eve-of-listing number was available to a defender making the call. Across every KEV entry we track, we measured how often that number was high — see the EPSS accuracy analysis.
How This Compares to Fortinet’s Track Record
At 167 days, CVE-2025-68686 was flagged slower than Fortinet’s 7-day median across the 29 of its KEV entries with verified publication dates.
| Fortinet in the CISA KEV catalog | Value |
|---|---|
| Tracked KEV entries | 29 |
| Median lag (public → KEV listing) | 7 days |
| 0-day rate (exploited at or before disclosure) | 34% |
| Entries tied to known ransomware campaigns | 13 |
Other Recent Fortinet KEV Additions
| CVE | Product | Added to KEV | Lag (days) | Ransomware |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2026-39808 | FortiSandbox | July 16, 2026 | 93 | No |
| CVE-2026-25089 | FortiSandbox | July 16, 2026 | 37 | No |
| CVE-2026-21643 | FortiClient EMS | April 13, 2026 | 66 | No |
| CVE-2026-35616 | FortiClient EMS | April 6, 2026 | 2 | No |
| CVE-2026-24858 | Multiple Products | January 27, 2026 | 0 | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
What is CVE-2025-68686?
CVE-2025-68686 is a vulnerability in Fortinet FortiOS (Fortinet FortiOS Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor Vulnerability) that CISA added to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on July 27, 2026. A KEV listing is CISA’s official confirmation that the flaw is being exploited in the wild.
How long was CVE-2025-68686 public before CISA confirmed exploitation?
167 calendar days, measured from its NVD publication date to the date CISA added it to the KEV catalog.
What is the federal patch deadline for CVE-2025-68686?
U.S. federal agencies must remediate CVE-2025-68686 by August 10, 2026, a 14-day window from the KEV listing date. Private organizations are not bound by that deadline, but CISA treats it as the benchmark for how urgently a confirmed-exploited flaw should be patched.
Is CVE-2025-68686 used in ransomware campaigns?
CISA has not flagged CVE-2025-68686 as known to be used in ransomware campaigns. That field reflects confirmed campaign use, not the absence of risk.
What was the EPSS score for CVE-2025-68686 before it was confirmed as exploited?
0.48% — the probability EPSS assigned on the day before CISA added CVE-2025-68686 to the KEV catalog, placing it in the 38.5% percentile of all scored CVEs that day. That is outside the top 10% of EPSS risk. Its score today is higher in most cases because EPSS reacts to the KEV listing itself, so only the eve-of-listing figure reflects what a defender could have acted on.
How does this compare to other Fortinet vulnerabilities?
Across 29 Fortinet entries with verified publication dates, the median lag is 7 days and 34% were exploited at or before disclosure. CVE-2025-68686, at 167 days, is slower than that median.
Related Coverage
- Critical Microsoft SharePoint Flaw CVE-2026-50522 (CVSS 9.8) Added to CISA KEV (July 2026)
- WordPress’s CVE-2026-63030 Was Exploited in 4 Days — Well Under Its 420-Day Median (July 2026)
Primary Sources
- CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog — the official listing that confirms active exploitation, and the source of the KEV date on this page.
- NVD — CVE-2025-68686 — publication date, CVSS score and the full technical record.
- Vendor advisory — fortiguard.fortinet.com — Fortinet’s own disclosure, with the affected versions and the fix.
How We Track This
This page is generated from our CISA KEV Lag Tracker, which syncs the official CISA KEV catalog daily and records the date each CVE is added. For every entry we retrieve the original NVD publication date and compute the lag in calendar days. No date or figure on this page is estimated or taken from a third-party source — they come directly from CISA and NVD records. Free to cite with attribution to CVEDaily (CC BY 4.0).