CVE-2017-15944
CRITICALCVE-2017-15944 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Improper Input Validation vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-08-18) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS before 6.1.19, 7.0.x before 7.0.19, 7.1.x before 7.1.14, and 8.0.x before 8.0.6 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via vectors involving the…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2022-08-18. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2022-09-08.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2017-15944.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2017-15944 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). In the shaded patch-first corner (EPSS 50%+, CVSS 7.0+).
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 394,803 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the ≥ 90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS before 6.1.19, 7.0.x before 7.0.19, 7.1.x before 7.1.14, and 8.0.x before 8.0.6 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via vectors involving the management interface.
Affected Products
pan-ospaloaltonetworksResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
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Detection & mitigation playbook
VulnerabilityDetect
Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).
Remediation status
No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2017-15944 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How to detect CVE-2017-15944
A community-maintained Nuclei template exists for this CVE. You can scan for it directly:
nuclei -id cve-2017-15944 -u https://target- Template
- Palo Alto Network PAN-OS - Remote Code Execution
- Severity
- critical
- Impact
- Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the affected system.
- Remediation
- Apply the latest security patches and updates provided by Palo Alto Networks.
Template by ProjectDiscovery nuclei-templates (emadshanab, milo2012), MIT licensed. View the full template. Scan only systems you are authorised to test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2017-15944 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.