Alert - Securing Palo Alto management interfaces from exploitation - Update 1

Audience

This Alert is intended for IT professionals and managers.

Purpose

An Alert is used to raise awareness of a recently identified cyber threat Cyber threatA threat actor, using the internet, who takes advantage of a known vulnerability in a product for the purposes of exploiting a network and the information the network carries. that may impact cyber information assets, and to provide additional detection DetectionThe monitoring and analyzing of system events in order to identify unauthorized attempts to access system resources. and mitigation advice to recipients. The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security Cyber securityThe protection of digital information, as well as the integrity of the infrastructure housing and transmitting digital information. More specifically, cyber security includes the body of technologies, processes, practices and response and mitigation measures designed to protect networks, computers, programs and data from attack, damage or unauthorized access so as to ensure confidentiality, integrity and availability. ("Cyber Centre") is also available to provide additional assistance regarding the content of this Alert to recipients as requested.

Update 1

On November 18, 2024, Palo Alto Networks (PAN) updated advisory PAN-SA-2024-0015 to include more details about the affected products. PAN has also published CVE-2024-0012 PAN-OS to identify an authentication AuthenticationA process or measure used to verify a users identity. bypass in the Web Management Interface^{Footnote 1}. In addition, the company published CVE-2024-9474 PAN-OS related to a privilege escalation (PE) vulnerability VulnerabilityA flaw or weakness in the design or implementation of an information system or its environment that could be exploited to adversely affect an organization's assets or operations. in the Web Management Interface^{Footnote 2}.

The Cyber Centre has included the details of the affected products under Suggested Actions below.

CISA added CVE-2024-0012 and CVE-2024-9474 to their Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog on the same date^{Footnote 4}.

Details

On November 8, 2024, Palo Alto Networks (PAN) published an advisory (PAN-SA-2024-0015) regarding a claim of exploitation that the vendor was investigating. On November 14, 2024, PAN updated the advisory to confirm that malicious activity has been observed targeting a limited number of PAN firewall FirewallA security barrier placed between two networks that controls the amount and kinds of traffic that may pass between the two. This protects local system resources from being accessed from the outside. management interfaces that are exposed to the Internet^{Footnote 5}.

The vendor confirms in the updated advisory that malicious actors have been observed exploiting an as-yet undisclosed unauthenticated remote command execution (RCE) vulnerability. It bears repeating that this is active exploitation by malicious actors.

The Cyber Centre notes that the vendor has also updated advisory PAN-SA-2024-0010 ("Multiple Vulnerabilities in Expedition Lead to Exposure of Firewall Credentials")^{Footnote 6Footnote 7}. The PAN advisory explicitly states that multiple vulnerabilities in Palo Alto Networks Expedition led to exposure of firewall credentials.

Suggested actions

Update 1 November 19, 2024

The Cyber Centre strongly recommends that organizations patch affected devices to remediate these vulnerabilities. Consult the PAN “best practices” deployment guide to ensure secure configuration for PAN devices.^{Footnote 3}

• Version: Cloud NGFW
  • Affected: none
  • Unaffected: all
• Version: PAN-OS 11.2
  • Affected: < 11.2.4-h1
  • Unaffected: >= 11.2.4-h1
• Version: PAN-OS 11.1
  • Affected: < 11.1.5-h1
  • Unaffected: >= 11.1.5-h1
• Version: PAN-OS 11.0
  • Affected: < 11.0.6-h1
  • Unaffected: >= 11.0.6-h1
• Version: PAN-OS 10.2
  • Affected: < 10.2.12-h1
  • Unaffected: >= 10.2.12-h1
• Version: PAN-OS 10.1
  • Affected: none
  • Unaffected: all
• Version: Cloud Prisma Access
  • Affected: none
  • Unaffected: all

End of update 1

It is imperative that organizations review the inventory of PAN devices and applications in their networks and verify whether these products require patching and/or further recommended mitigations.

Organizations can verify whether they have any firewall management interfaces exposed to the Internet by consulting the Palo Alto Customer Support Portal (Products > Assets > All Assets > Remediation Required)^{Footnote 8}.

Devices and applications should then be configured according to the vendor's recommended best practices^{Footnote 9}.

Organizations should also review and implement the Cyber Centre's Top 10 IT Security Actions^{Footnote 10} with an emphasis on the following topics:

• consolidating, monitoring, and defending Internet gateways
• patching operating systems and applications
• isolating Web-facing applications

If activity matching the content of this alert is discovered, recipients are encouraged to report via the My Cyber Portal, or email contact@cyber.gc.ca.

Partner reporting

Palo Alto Networks Emphasizes Hardening Guidance