Chinese Hackers Exploited FortiGate Flaw to Breach Dutch Military Network

Chinese state-backed actors exploited a critical FortiOS SSL‑VPN vulnerability (CVE-2022-42475, CVSS 9.3) in 2023 to compromise a Dutch military R&D FortiGate network (fewer than 50 users) and deploy a stealthy, persistent backdoor named COATHANGER that survives reboots and firmware upgrades; the intrusion was publicly attributed to China and represents active nation-state cyber espionage leveraging a high-severity exploit.