Why doesn't documentation state login passwords are encrypted in a Fortigate?

[jefazo92]

I understand Fortigate must do this by default but I have not found this stated in the documentation. In my case, the Fortigate-100F seems to have no TPM and even if it had the admin manual does not mention that login credentials are encrypted by the TPM. Therefore, is there any official source which confirms login credentials are encrypted in a Fortigate-100F?

[ozkanaltas]

Hello @jefazo92 ,

Normally your passwords are kept encrypted on fortigate.

If you have a FortiGate model with TPM support, you need to activate it. In other words, FortiGate does not store passwords on the TPM chip unless you activate it.

You can think of it like this, you have a password and you encrypted it. No one can understand it. On top of that, you wanted to increase security measures in case this password is stolen, this time you can activate TPM and store this password here.

https://docs.fortinet.com/document/fortigate/7.6.0/administration-guide/893277/trusted-platform-modu...

[calink · Accepted solution]

It does go into some detail about it in the hardening guides.

https://docs.fortinet.com/document/fortigate/6.4.0/hardening-your-fortigate/995103/building-security...

https://docs.fortinet.com/document/fortigate/7.2.0/best-practices/555436/hardening

[jefazo92]

@calink that was what I was looking for! Thank you very much.