US Cyber Command said today that foreign state-sponsored hacking groups are likely to exploit a major security bug disclosed today in PAN-OS, the operating system running on firewalls and enterprise VPN appliances from Palo Alto Networks.
The CVE-2020-2021 vulnerability is one of those rare security bugs that received a 10 out of 10 score on the CVSSv3 severity scale. A 10/10 CVSSv3 score means the vulnerability is both easy to exploit as it doesn’t require advanced technical skills, and it’s remotely exploitable via the internet, without requiring attackers to gain an initial foothold on the attacked device.
In short, the vulnerability is an authentication bypass that allows threat actors to access the device without needing to provide valid credentials. Once exploited, the bug allows hackers to change PAN-OS settings and features. This is scary because it could be used to disable firewalls or VPN access-control policies, effectively disabling the entire PAN-OS device.
