CriticalCVE-2024-5910

    Expedition: Missing Authentication Leads to Admin Account Takeover (CVE-2024-5910)

    Published In CISA KEV since Sources: SingCERT, CVE.org, pwn.watch

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    What is affected, what to do

    Missing authentication for a critical function in Palo Alto Networks Expedition can lead to an Expedition admin account takeover for attackers with network access to Expedition. Note: Expedition is a tool aiding in configuration migration, tuning, and enrichment.

    The vulnerability is being actively exploited; treat it as a priority. Update Palo Alto Networks Expedition to version 1.2.92. Immediate actions, mitigation and detection rules are in the runbook below.

    Affected
    • Palo Alto Networks Expedition lt 1.2..1.2.92
    Fixed in
    • Palo Alto Networks Expedition 1.2.92

    Not sure whether and how you are affected? Ask a question about this vulnerability

    Metrics

    9.8

    Priority

    XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.

    Source: NVD, CVSS v3

    9.8

    CVSS v3

    Severity Critical on the scale from 0 to 10.

    Source: SingCERT, CVE.org, pwn.watch

    91.7 %

    EPSS score

    High — model estimates ≥ 50% chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days.

    Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 99.82

    Show all metrics
    Severity
    Critical
    Priority (0–325)

    The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?

    Read in glossary
    234.30 Methodology
    Exploit maturity

    An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.

    Read in glossary
    actively exploitedSource: VulnCheck KEV (opens in a new tab), CSA/SingCERT How we classify
    XIEM Effective CVSS

    XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.

    Read in glossary
    9.8 Methodology
    CVSS v3

    CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.

    Read in glossary
    9.8
    CVSS v4

    CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.

    Read in glossary
    9.3
    EPSS score

    The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.

    Read in glossary
    91.7 %
    High — model estimates ≥ 50% chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days.
    EPSS percentile

    The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.

    Read in glossary
    99.82
    Critical — this CVE ranks in the top fifth of all CVEs scored today (rank ≥ 80%).
    KEV status

    The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.

    Read in glossary
    Actively exploited
    Published
    In CISA KEV since

    The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.

    Read in glossary
    CISA assessment (SSVC)
    Exploitation: active · automatable · Technical impact: total
    Source: CISA Vulnrichment, as of 7 November 2024
    CWE

    CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect.

    Read in glossary
    CWE-306

    Response and mitigation

    Why act now?

    Prioritisation rationale

    This flaw is exploitable over the network without authentication or user interaction, and it ranks among the CVEs most likely to be exploited. Public exploit chains combine the admin takeover with sibling Expedition bugs to reach root code execution. The real damage is rarely confined to Expedition itself: the payoff is harvested firewall credentials, API keys and complete rulesets. These enable perimeter compromise and precise reconnaissance of your network architecture. CISA does not flag ransomware use, but any reachable instance holding production configs should be treated as critical and remediated within 24 h. Where Expedition is powered off or absent, the work shrinks to an inventory check and precautionary credential rotation.

    1. Runbook step 1

      Immediate response (0-24 h)

      • Inventory: Find every Expedition instance, including VMs, migration-project boxes and forgotten lab systems. Expedition typically runs as an Ubuntu VM that sits outside normal patch and asset management.
      • Patch: Upgrade to Expedition 1.2.92 or later. All versions from 1.2.0 up to (but not including) 1.2.92 are vulnerable. If the instance is no longer needed, power it off instead of patching it.
      • Lock down network access now: Restrict the web UI (TCP 80/443) and SSH (TCP 22) to a dedicated admin jump host or admin VLAN. Remove any exposure to the internet or to user VLANs immediately.
      • Rotate credentials: Treat every secret ever imported into Expedition as compromised. That includes PAN-OS admin accounts, PAN-OS API keys and Panorama credentials. It also includes secrets from third-party configs (Cisco, Check Point, Fortinet, etc.), such as pre-shared keys, RADIUS/LDAP bind passwords and SNMP communities.
      • Check the Expedition admin account: Check whether the admin password has been unexpectedly reset to the default, which is the hallmark of exploitation. If it has, take a forensic image before rebuilding.
      • Address the companion bugs: Check exposure to CVE-2024-9463, CVE-2024-9464 and CVE-2024-9465. These related Expedition flaws are also on KEV and are chained with CVE-2024-5910: attackers take over the admin account, then execute commands as root.

    2. Runbook step 2

      Mitigation layers

      • Network segmentation: Move Expedition into an isolated management segment. Allow inbound access only from an allow-list of firewall administrators. Allow outbound access only to the firewalls and Panorama it strictly needs. Deny and log all other egress, especially to the internet, to hinder exfiltration and reverse shells.
      • Operating model: Run Expedition on demand only: start the VM for a migration project and shut it down afterwards. The vendor has announced Expedition's end-of-life, so plan permanent decommissioning and an alternative migration path.
      • WAF/IPS: Deploy a reverse-proxy or WAF rule that blocks requests to paths under /OS/startup/restore/ (including restoreAdmin.php). Also enable Threat Prevention signatures on the upstream PAN-OS firewall. The relevant threat ID is listed in the vendor advisory.
      • IAM/least privilege: Import configs using dedicated, minimally privileged, short-lived PAN-OS accounts or API keys, and revoke them when the project closes. Never store personal superuser credentials in Expedition.
      • Data minimisation: Delete completed projects, config backups and uploaded third-party configs from Expedition. The fewer secrets stored there, the smaller the blast radius.

    3. Runbook step 3

      Detection rules

      • Web server access log (Apache on the Expedition VM, /var/log/apache2/access.log): Look for requests to restoreAdmin.php or /OS/startup/restore/. SPL example: index=linux sourcetype=access_combined uri_path="*/OS/startup/restore/*" | stats count by src_ip, uri_path, status. Treat any hit outside a documented maintenance window as critical.
      • Login anomalies: Successful admin logins from non-approved source IPs, especially shortly after a hit on the restore path. Sigma shape: logsource: webserver, selection: cs-uri-stem|contains: 'restoreAdmin', correlated with login POSTs from the same c-ip within 10 min.
      • Process ancestry (auditd/EDR): Watch for www-data or Apache spawning sh, bash, curl, wget, python or nc. This indicates chaining with CVE-2024-9463/9464. auditd rule: -a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S execve -F uid=33 -k expedition_web_exec.
      • Network telemetry (Zeek/Suricata, firewall logs): Flag outbound connections from the Expedition VM to anything other than firewalls, Panorama or update servers. Also flag inbound HTTP(S) sessions from non-approved segments.
      • Abuse of stolen credentials: In PAN-OS and Panorama system and config logs, search for API or admin logins that use accounts or keys stored in Expedition but originate from source IPs other than the Expedition VM. Also watch for unexpected commits.

    Detection rules

    No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.

    Classification under NIS2 and CRA

    Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.

    NIS2

    NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.

    Read in glossary
    Actively exploited: treat the vulnerability as a priority in vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2. If it is exploited in your environment, check the reporting obligation under Art. 23 (early warning within 24 hours).
    CRA

    The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.

    Read in glossary
    Since 11.09.2026, manufacturers of affected products with digital elements must report actively exploited vulnerabilities under Art. 14 CRA, with an early warning within 24 hours via ENISA's single reporting platform.
    ISO/IEC 27001

    ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.

    Read in glossary
    Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.

    Description

    Missing authentication for a critical function in Palo Alto Networks Expedition can lead to an Expedition admin account takeover for attackers with network access to Expedition. Note: Expedition is a tool aiding in configuration migration, tuning, and enrichment. Configuration secrets, credentials, and other data imported into Expedition is at risk due to this issue.

    Source: CSA/SingCERT, NVD (NIST), cvelistv5, CISA KEV Catalog, CVE.org (MITRE), pwn.watch

    Affected products

    The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.

    Affected products
    Affected versionsFixed in
    Palo Alto NetworksExpedition
    • 1.2 – < 1.2.92
    • 1.2.92
    paloaltonetworksexpedition
    • 1.2.0 – < 1.2.92
    • 1.2.92

    Vendors and products

    Weakness classes (CWE)

    • CWE-306Missing Authentication for Critical Function

      Base

      The product does not perform any authentication for functionality that requires a provable user identity or consumes a significant amount of resources.

      Entry at MITRE CWE-306

    Public exploit references

    Publicly reported proof-of-concepts, exploit modules and detection templates for this vulnerability. NEOSEC links to the original sources only and does not provide any exploit code.

    Public exploit references
    CISA KEV CatalogCISA Known Exploited Vulnerability (opens in a new tab)cisa.govactively exploited
    CSA/SingCERTMultiple Vulnerabilities in Palo Alto Networks Expedition (opens in a new tab)CSA/SingCERTactively exploited
    CSA/SingCERTCritical Vulnerability in Palo Alto Networks Expedition Migration Tool (opens in a new tab)CSA/SingCERTactively exploited
    Reference tagged as exploithorizon3.ai (opens in a new tab)PoC (publicly reported)reported, not verified—

    References & sources

    • security.paloaltonetworks.comPalo Alto Networks advisory: CVE-2024-5910Vendor advisory, Vendor advisory, pwn-watch
    • cisa.govknown-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2024-5910government-resource, US government resource
    • horizon3.aiattack-research/palo-alto-expedition-from-n-day-to-full-comprom…Exploit, Third-party advisory
    • pwn.watchpwn.watch: Palo Alto Networks Expedition: 3 actively exploited vulnerabilitiespwn-watch
    • security.paloaltonetworks.comPalo Alto Networks advisory: CVE-2024-9463pwn-watch
    • NVD (NIST)NVD: CVE-2024-5910pwn-watch
    • NVD (NIST)NVD: CVE-2024-9463pwn-watch
    • NVD (NIST)NVD: CVE-2024-9465pwn-watch
    • cisa.govCISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalogpwn-watch
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