CVE-2025-4231 PAN-OS: Authenticated Admin Command Injection Vulnerability in the Management Web Interface

Description

A command injection vulnerability in Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS® enables an authenticated administrative user to perform actions as the root user.

The attacker must have network access to the management web interface and successfully authenticate to exploit this issue.

Cloud NGFW and Prisma Access are not impacted by this vulnerability.

Product Status

Required Configuration for Exposure

The risk is greatest if you allow access to the management web interface from the internet or from any untrusted network either:

1. Directly; or

2. Through a dataplane interface that includes a management interface profile.

You greatly reduce the risk if you ensure that you allow only trusted internal IP addresses to access the management web interface.

Use the following steps to identify your recently detected devices in our internet scans.

1. To find any assets that require remediation, visit the Assets section of the Customer Support Portal:https://support.paloaltonetworks.com and then select Products → Assets → All Assets → Remediation Required).

2. Review the list of your assets that we discovered in our scans to have an internet-facing management interface. We tagged these assets with ‘PAN-SA-2024-0015’ and a last seen timestamp (in UTC). If you do not see any such assets listed, then our scan did not find any devices associated with your account in the past three days that have an internet-facing management interface.
   

Severity: MEDIUM, Suggested Urgency: MODERATE

The risk is highest when you allow access to the management interface from external IP addresses on the internet.
MEDIUM - CVSS-BT: 6.1 /CVSS-B: 8.6 (CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:H/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:L/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/AU:N/R:U/V:C/RE:M/U:Amber)

You can greatly reduce the risk of exploitation by restricting access to a jump box that is the only system allowed to access the management interface. This will ensure that attacks can succeed only if they obtain privileged access through those specified IP addresses.
MEDIUM - CVSS-BT: 4.0 /CVSS-B: 7.1 (CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:H/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:L/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/AU:N/R:U/V:C/RE:M/U:Amber)

Exploitation Status

Palo Alto Networks is not aware of any malicious exploitation of this issue.

Weakness Type and Impact

CWE-77 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in a Command ('Command Injection')

CAPEC-233 Privilege Escalation

Solution

*PAN-OS 11.0 has reached EoL. We listed it here for completeness because a patch for PAN-OS 11.0 was released before it reached EoL. If you are still using any vulnerable EoL versions, we strongly recommend that you upgrade to a supported fixed PAN-OS version.

Workarounds and Mitigations

Recommended mitigation—The vast majority of firewalls already follow Palo Alto Networks and industry best practices. However, if you have not already, we strongly recommend that you secure access to your management interface according to our critical deployment guidelines. Specifically, you should restrict management interface access to only trusted internal IP addresses.

Review more information about how to secure management access to your Palo Alto Networks firewalls in these documents:

• Palo Alto Networks LIVEcommunity article: https://live.paloaltonetworks.com/t5/community-blogs/tips-amp-tricks-how-to-secure-the-management-access-of-your-palo/ba-p/464431

• Palo Alto Networks official and detailed technical documentation: https://docs.paloaltonetworks.com/best-practices/10-1/administrative-access-best-practices/administrative-access-best-practices/deploy-administrative-access-best-practices

Acknowledgments

CPEs

Timeline