CVE-2021-3054

PAN-OS: Unsigned Code Execution During Plugin Installation Race Condition Vulnerability

At a glance

Severity: HIGH 7.2
EPSS: EPSS 0.92 % · percentile 60 (2026-10-27)
State: PUBLISHED
Published: 2021-09-08
Updated: 2024-09-16
Assigner: palo_alto
NVD status: Modified

Description

A time-of-check to time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition vulnerability in the Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS web interface enables an authenticated administrator with permission to upload plugins to execute arbitrary code with root user privileges. This issue impacts: PAN-OS 8.1 versions earlier than PAN-OS 8.1.20; PAN-OS 9.0 versions earlier than PAN-OS 9.0.14; PAN-OS 9.1 versions earlier than PAN-OS 9.1.11; PAN-OS 10.0 versions earlier than PAN-OS 10.0.7; PAN-OS 10.1 versions earlier than PAN-OS 10.1.2. This issue does not affect Prisma Access.

Scores

Version	Score	Vector	Scored by
CVSS 3.1	HIGH 7.2	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H	palo_alto
CVSS 3.1	HIGH 7.2	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H	NVD · psirt@paloaltonetworks.com (Secondary)
CVSS 3.1	MEDIUM 6.6	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H	NVD · nvd@nist.gov (Primary)
CVSS 2.0	HIGH 8.5	AV:N/AC:M/Au:S/C:C/I:C/A:C	NVD · nvd@nist.gov (Primary)

Weaknesses (CWE)

CWE-367

European references

ENISA EUVD · EUVD-2021-26406
GCVE · GCVE-0-2021-3054

CERT-FR advisories

CERTFR-2021-AVI-692 — Multiples vulnérabilités dans les produits Palo Alto Networks · cert.ssi.gouv.fr

Affected configurations (NVD CPE)

cpe:2.3:o:paloaltonetworks:pan-os:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* ≥ 8.1.0 < 8.1.20
cpe:2.3:o:paloaltonetworks:pan-os:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* ≥ 9.0.0 < 9.0.14
cpe:2.3:o:paloaltonetworks:pan-os:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* ≥ 9.1.0 < 9.1.11
cpe:2.3:o:paloaltonetworks:pan-os:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* ≥ 10.0.0 < 10.0.7
cpe:2.3:o:paloaltonetworks:pan-os:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* ≥ 10.1.0 < 10.1.2

Affected products

Product	Versions
Palo Alto Networks · PAN-OS	affected 8.1 < 8.1.20 ; affected 9.0 < 9.0.14 ; affected 10.0 < 10.0.7 ; affected 9.1 < 9.1.11 ; affected 10.1 < 10.1.2

References

https://security.paloaltonetworks.com/CVE-2021-3054

Sources

Source	Licence
CVE List (CVEProject cvelistV5)	CVE Program Terms of Use
EPSS (FIRST.org)	FIRST — attribution requested
ENISA EUVD	ENISA — reproduction authorised, source acknowledged
CERT-FR (ANSSI)	Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0
NVD (NIST) via fkie-cad/nvd-json-data-feeds	Public domain — this product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD