Vulnerability Monitor

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CVE-2020-1978


TechSupport files generated on Palo Alto Networks VM Series firewalls for Microsoft Azure platform configured with high availability (HA) inadvertently collect Azure dashboard service account credentials. These credentials are equivalent to the credentials associated with the Contributor role in Azure. A user with the credentials will be able to manage all the Azure resources in the subscription except for granting access to other resources. These credentials do not allow login access to the VMs themselves. This issue affects VM Series Plugin versions before 1.0.9 for PAN-OS 9.0. This issue does not affect VM Series in non-HA configurations or on other cloud platforms. It does not affect hardware firewall appliances. Since becoming aware of the issue, Palo Alto Networks has safely deleted all the tech support files with the credentials. We now filter and remove these credentials from all TechSupport files sent to us. The TechSupport files uploaded to Palo Alto Networks systems were only accessible by authorized personnel with valid Palo Alto Networks credentials. We do not have any evidence of malicious access or use of these credentials.


Security Impact Summary

This vulnerability carries a MEDIUM severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 5.8, requiring local system access to exploit with relatively low complexity though user interaction is required . The vulnerability impacts confidentiality (data exposure), and availability (service disruption) for affected systems. Impacting 2 products from paloaltonetworks, from paloaltonetworks organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.

Historical Context

Reported in 2020, this vulnerability emerged during an era marked by increased sophistication in supply chain attacks, cloud infrastructure vulnerabilities, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) security challenges. Security practices during this period emphasized zero-trust architectures, container security, and API protection.


Published

2020-04-08T19:15:13.277

Last Modified

2024-11-21T05:11:46.410

Status

Modified

Source

[email protected]

Severity

CVSSv3.1: 5.8 (MEDIUM)

CVSSv2 Vector

AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N

  • Access Vector: LOCAL
  • Access Complexity: MEDIUM
  • Authentication: NONE
  • Confidentiality Impact: PARTIAL
  • Integrity Impact: NONE
  • Availability Impact: NONE
Exploitability Score

3.4

Impact Score

2.9

Weaknesses
  • Type: Secondary
    CWE-255
  • Type: Primary
    CWE-522

Affected Vendors & Products
Type Vendor Product Version/Range Vulnerable?
Application paloaltonetworks vm-series < 1.0.9 Yes
Operating System paloaltonetworks pan-os 9.0.0 Yes

References

How SecUtils Interprets This CVE

SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For paloaltonetworks's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.