Palo Alto PAN-OS Flaw Under Active Exploitation Enables Remote Code Execution

Palo Alto Networks has released an advisory warning that a critical buffer overflow vulnerability in its PAN-OS software has been exploited in the wild.

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-0300, has been described as a case of unauthenticated remote code execution. It carries a CVSS score of 9.3 if the User-ID Authentication Portal is configured to enable access from the internet or any untrusted network. The severity comes down to 8.7 if access to the portal is restricted to only trusted internal IP addresses.

"A buffer overflow vulnerability in the User-ID Authentication Portal (aka Captive Portal) service of Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS software allows an unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code with root privileges on the PA-Series and VM-Series firewalls by sending specially crafted packets," the company said.

According to Palo Alto Networks, the vulnerability has come under "limited exploitation," specifically targeting instances where the User-ID Authentication Portal has been left publicly accessible. The following versions are impacted by the flaw -

PAN-OS 12.1 - < 12.1.4-h5, < 12.1.7

Palo Alto PAN-OS Flaw Under Active Exploitation Enables Remote Code Execution

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