A new zero-day vulnerability has been disclosed in Palo Alto Networks GlobalProtect VPN that could be abused by an unauthenticated network-based attacker to execute arbitrary code on affected devices with root user privileges.
The issue affects multiple versions of PAN-OS 8.1 prior to 8.1.17, and Randori said it found numerous vulnerable instances exposed on internet-facing assets, in excess of 70,000 assets.
Technical details related to CVE-2021-3064 have been withheld for 30 days to prevent threat actors from abusing the vulnerability to stage real-world attacks.
"The vulnerability chain consists of a method for bypassing validations made by an external web server known as HTTP smuggling and a stack-based buffer overflow," Randori researchers said.
Randori exploited Palo Alto Networks PA-5220, including PAN-OS 8.1.16 and PAN-OS 8.1.15.
"A memory corruption vulnerability exists in Palo Alto Networks GlobalProtect portal and gateway interfaces that enables an unauthenticated network-based attacker to disrupt system processes and potentially execute arbitrary code with root privileges," Palo Alto Networks said in an independent advisory.
