PAN-OS: Improper Access Control Vulnerability Exposing AWS Instance Metadata Endpoint to GlobalProtect Users

published 2021-11-10 4 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-26414

cvss: 8.1; version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.7%; EPSS 0.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 54%
public exploits: 0; none known

An improper access control vulnerability in PAN-OS software enables an attacker with authenticated access to GlobalProtect portals and gateways to connect to the EC2 instance metadata endpoint for VM-Series firewalls hosted on Amazon AWS. Exploitation of this vulnerability enables an attacker to perform any operations allowed by the EC2 role in AWS. This issue impacts: PAN-OS 8.1 versions earlier than PAN-OS 8.1.20 VM-Series firewalls; PAN-OS 9.1 versions earlier than PAN-OS 9.1.11 VM-Series firewalls; PAN-OS 9.0 versions earlier than PAN-OS 9.0.14 VM-Series firewalls; PAN-OS 10.0 versions earlier than PAN-OS 10.0.8 VM-Series firewalls. Prisma Access customers are not impacted by this issue.

Patch / fix

fixed in 1

Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS 8.1.20, 9.0.14, 9.1.11, 10.0.8

Exploit prediction

0.72% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 54% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CNA	3.1	8.1	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
NVD	3.1	8.8	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD	2.0	6.0	AV:N/AC:M/Au:S/C:P/I:P/A:P

Affected products

Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS
Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access

Classification

Weakness

CWE-284 Improper Access Control

Technology feeds

Palo Alto PAN-OS rss critical rss

References

security.paloaltonetworks.com /CVE-2021-3062
vendor-advisory

Sources

CVE List CVE-2021-3062
NVD CVE-2021-3062

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Summary