# Qilin ransomware claims Turkish construction firm Ciftay

Published: 2026-10-06 · Severity: high
Canonical: https://vorant.io/reports/897e6257-ad26-51cf-9f62-17e55ab369dd/qilin-ransomware-claims-turkish-construction-firm-ciftay

> Qilin ransomware group lists Turkish contractor Ciftay Insaat as a victim, with prior FortiOS SSL-VPN credential exposure linked to CVE-2022-40684.

Ransomware.live has indexed a new victim listing from the Qilin ransomware operation, naming Ciftay Insaat Taahhut Ve Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, a Turkish construction and trade company, as a victim. The posting is a leak-site entry rather than a detailed incident report, citing 17 compromised user accounts, 4 third-party employee credential exposures, and a limited external attack surface of 3 assets tied to the victim's domain.

Notably, the listing flags that the victim's FortiOS SSL-VPN credentials had previously been exposed via the "FortiBleed" vulnerability (CVE-2022-40684), an authentication bypass in FortiOS/FortiProxy that allows unauthenticated attackers to retrieve admin credentials and other sensitive data from exposed management interfaces. This suggests exposed or unpatched Fortinet SSL-VPN infrastructure may have contributed to initial access or credential compromise in this intrusion, a pattern consistent with other Qilin and broader ransomware activity that has leveraged FortiBleed for initial foothold or credential harvesting.

Defenders using Fortinet SSL-VPN products should verify patch status against CVE-2022-40684, rotate any credentials potentially exposed through legacy vulnerable instances, and audit for unauthorized VPN or admin logins. Organizations should also monitor for infostealer-derived credential leaks, as the entry references credential exposure data correlating with infostealer infections, a common precursor to ransomware deployment.

## Mentioned in this report

- Vulnerabilities: CVE-2022-40684 (KEV)
- Threat actors: qilin
- Malware: Qilin

Source reporting: https://www.ransomware.live/id/Q2lmdGF5IEluc2FhdCBUYWFoaHV0IFZlIFRpY2FyZXQgQW5vbmltIFNpcmtldGlAcWlsaW4=

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