CVE-2020-2016 PAN-OS: Temporary file race condition vulnerability in PAN-OS leads to local privilege escalation
Description
A race condition due to insecure creation of a file in a temporary directory vulnerability in PAN-OS allows for root privilege escalation from a limited linux user account.
This allows an attacker who has escaped the restricted shell as a low privilege administrator, possibly by exploiting another vulnerability, to escalate privileges to become root user.
This issue affects:
PAN-OS 7.1 versions earlier than 7.1.26;
PAN-OS 8.1 versions earlier than 8.1.13;
PAN-OS 9.0 versions earlier than 9.0.6;
All versions of PAN-OS 8.0.
Product Status
| Versions | Affected | Unaffected |
|---|---|---|
| PAN-OS 9.1 | None | >= 9.1.0 |
| PAN-OS 9.0 | < 9.0.6 | >= 9.0.6 |
| PAN-OS 8.1 | < 8.1.13 | >= 8.1.13 |
| PAN-OS 8.0 | 8.0.* | None |
| PAN-OS 7.1 | < 7.1.26 | >= 7.1.26 |
Severity: HIGH
CVSSv3.1 Base Score: 7 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H)
Exploitation Status
Palo Alto Networks is not aware of any exploitation of this issue.
Weakness Type
CWE-377 Insecure Temporary File
Solution
This issue is fixed in PAN-OS 7.1.26, PAN-OS 8.1.13, PAN-OS 9.0.6, PAN-OS 9.1.0, and all later PAN-OS versions.
PAN-OS 8.0 is now end-of-life as of October 31, 2019, and is no longer covered by our Product Security Assurance policies.
Workarounds and Mitigations
This issue affects the management interface of PAN-OS and is strongly mitigated by following best practices for securing the PAN-OS management interface. Please review the Best Practices for Securing Administrative Access in the PAN-OS technical documentation, available at: https://docs.paloaltonetworks.com.