GreyNoise has observed a significant surge in login scanning activity targeting Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS GlobalProtect portals. Over the last 30 days, nearly 24,000 unique IP addresses have attempted to access these portals. The pattern suggests a coordinated effort to probe network defenses and identify exposed or vulnerable systems, potentially as a precursor to targeted exploitation.
Recent patterns observed by GreyNoise suggest that this activity may signal the emergence of new vulnerabilities in the near future:
“Over the past 18 to 24 months, we’ve observed a consistent pattern of deliberate targeting of older vulnerabilities or well-worn attack and reconnaissance attempts against specific technologies,” said Bob Rudis, VP of Data Science at GreyNoise. “These patterns often coincide with new vulnerabilities emerging 2 to 4 weeks later.”
A suspected Chinese hacking campaign that began in November is exploiting a vulnerability in Palo Alto firewalls to install a custom malware backdoor for espionage.
Palo Alto Networks has disclosed a high-severity vulnerability impacting PAN-OS software that could cause a denial-of-service (DoS) condition on susceptible devices.
The flaw, tracked as CVE-2024-3393 (CVSS score: 8.7), impacts PAN-OS versions 10.X and 11.X, as well as Prisma Access running PAN-OS versions. It has been addressed in PAN-OS 10.1.14-h8, PAN-OS 10.2.10-h12, PAN-OS 11.1.5, PAN-OS 11.2.3, and all later PAN-OS versions.
This is a pair of vulnerabilities, described as ‘Authentication Bypass in the Management Web Interface’ and a ‘Privilege Escalation‘ respectively, strongly suggesting they are used as a chain to gain superuser access, a pattern that we’ve seen before with Palo Alto appliances. Before we’ve even dived into to code, we’ve already ascertained that we’re looking for a chain of vulnerabilities to achieve that coveted pre-authenticated Remote Code Execution.
