CVE-2020-2018: PAN-OS: Panorama authentication bypass vulnerability

Severity: critical (CVSS 9.0 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 1.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2020-05-13 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-287

Description

An authentication bypass vulnerability in the Panorama context switching feature allows an attacker with network access to a Panorama's management interface to gain privileged access to managed firewalls. An attacker requires some knowledge of managed firewalls to exploit this issue. This issue does not affect Panorama configured with custom certificates authentication for communication between Panorama and managed devices. This issue affects: PAN-OS 7.1 versions earlier than 7.1.26; PAN-OS 8.1 versions earlier than 8.1.12; PAN-OS 9.0 versions earlier than 9.0.6; All versions of PAN-OS 8.0.

Affected products

Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS: from 7.1.0 before 7.1.26; from 8.0.0 through 8.0.20; from 8.1.0 before 8.1.12; from 9.0.0 before 9.0.6 — fixed in 7.1.26, 8.1.12, 9.0.6
Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS: from 7.1 before 7.1.26; from 8.1 before 8.1.12; from 9.0 before 9.0.6; 8.0.* — fixed in 7.1.26, 8.1.12, 9.0.6

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS 7.1.26, 8.1.12, 9.0.6; Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS 7.1.26, 8.1.12, 9.0.6. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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