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dsrivastava
Staff
Staff
August 17, 2023

Technical Tip: Getting alert logs frequently on FortiGate for 'SSL failed users' from the unknown public IP addresses and from different countries

  • August 17, 2023
  • 0 replies
  • 6265 views
Description

This article describes how to remediate a brute force attack, resulting in the SSL failed user alert logs as seen below:

 

Message meets Alert condition The following critical firewall event was detected: SSL VPN login fail. date=2022-12-29 time=09:36:07 devname=FG100E devid=FG100E4Q17015334 eventtime=1672286767552373161 tz="+0530" logid="0101039426" type="event" subtype="vpn" level="alert" vd="root" logdesc="SSL VPN login fail" action="ssl-login-fail" tunneltype="ssl-web" tunnelid=0 remip=x.x.x.x user="Userl" group="N/A" dst_host="N/A" reason="sslvpn_login_permission_denied" msg="SSL user failed to logged in"

 

In the GUI, VPN Events logs are displayed as shown in the image below:

Screenshot 2026-03-12 150806.png

Scope FortiGate.
Solution

On a default configuration of the SSL VPN exposed to the internet, in the logs, it is possible to see many attempts to log in to the SSL VPN.
There are many ways to cut down on these attempts; following the SSL VPN Security Best Practices guide is a good start:
SSL VPN security best practices


Generally, after implementing the suggestions seen in that article, there may still be some attempts to make.

The geo-block would still allow attempts from the country that was configured.

Usually, these leftover attempts will be coming from Tor exit nodes or other anonymous VPNs.

Following this article will allow you to use the built-in ISDB objects to block these attempts:
Technical Tip: Prevent Malicious IP addresses from accessing SSL VPN with brute-force attacks on FortiGate 

 

Other documents that cover restricting SSL VPN attempts:

    Thought Leadership. Security Summit. Thursday, November 12th, PGA National Resort, Palm Beach Gardens, FL.
    Thought Leadership. Security Summit. Thursday, October 8th. Disney's Grand Californian Hotel & SPA, Anaheim, CA.
    Security Operations Summit: Modernize SecOps. Operate AI-Native.AMER: November 4 | 9:00 AM PST. India and SAARC: November 5 | 10:00 AM IST. EMEA: November 5 | 10:30 AM CET. APAC: November 5 | 11:00 AM SGT