CriticalCVE-2024-9465

    Expedition: SQL Injection Leads to Firewall Admin Credential Disclosure (CVE-2024-9465)

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

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    What is affected, what to do

    An SQL injection vulnerability in Palo Alto Networks Expedition allows an unauthenticated attacker to disclose database contents, including password hashes, usernames, device configurations, and API keys. Attackers can also create and read arbitrary files on the system. This vulnerability is actively exploited in the wild. All versions of Palo Alto Networks Expedition are affected. Immediate patching to the latest version is urgently recommended.

    The vulnerability is being actively exploited; treat it as a priority. Update Palo Alto Networks Expedition to version 1.2.96. Immediate actions, mitigation and detection rules are in the runbook below.

    Affected
    • Palo Alto Networks Expedition lt 1.2.0..1.2.96
    Fixed in
    • Palo Alto Networks Expedition 1.2.96

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

    Metrics

    9.2

    Priority

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

    Source: NVD, CVSS v4

    9.1

    CVSS v3

    Severity Critical on the scale from 0 to 10.

    Source: SingCERT, pwn.watch, CVE.org

    99.63 %

    EPSS score

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

    Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 99.95

    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
    232.34 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) 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.

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    9.2 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
    9.1
    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
    9.2
    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“.

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    99.63 %
    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
    99.95
    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 20 August 2025
    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-89

    Response and mitigation

    Why act now?

    Prioritisation rationale

    This CVE is on KEV because it is network-reachable, requires no authentication, no user interaction, and chains SQL injection into both credential disclosure and arbitrary file write — effectively a pre-auth takeover of a tool that aggregates privileged firewall credentials. Exploitation likelihood sits among the very highest in the entire CVE catalogue, public proof-of-concept code exists, and opportunistic scanning for exposed Expedition hosts is well documented. The typical target profile is any organisation running Palo Alto firewalls that uses Expedition for migration or policy conversion, especially NIS2 and critical-infrastructure operators with large PAN-OS fleets. Rate P1 for any instance that has ever been externally reachable; P2 for internal-only deployments accessible to non-admin users. Also inspect decommissioned Expedition hosts — stored credentials can still compromise live firewalls.

    1. Runbook step 1

      Immediate response (0-24 h)

      • Upgrade Expedition to version 1.2.96 or later (Palo Alto Networks advisory PAN-SA-2024-0010 / CVE-2024-9465). A fix is available and closes the known SQLi vectors.
      • Until patched, remove the Expedition web UI (TCP/443, TCP/80) from any reachable network. Expedition is a migration tool, not a production service — restrict access to a management VLAN with an explicit admin-IP allowlist.
      • Treat any internet-exposed instance as compromised: rotate every credential stored in Expedition — PAN-OS admin accounts, device API keys, Panorama logins. Password hashes in the Expedition database must be considered leaked.
      • Diff every PAN-OS device configuration that was imported into Expedition against a known-good baseline (show config diff), and review firewall audit logs for unexpected admin accounts or policy edits in the last 90 days.
      • Forensically image the Expedition host before rebuild: preserve /tmp, /var/www, Apache access logs, MySQL general_log, and the Expedition user's shell history. The SQLi primitive allows arbitrary file writes and therefore webshell deployment.
      • If a data breach cannot be ruled out and Expedition touched NIS2-scope environments, notify the national CSIRT within the 72-hour reporting window.

    2. Runbook step 2

      Mitigation layers

      • Network segmentation: place Expedition in an isolated management segment with no internet egress. Block all inbound traffic at the perimeter; admin access only via VPN plus MFA.
      • Reverse proxy or WAF (nginx, F5, Cloudflare) in front of Expedition with signatures against union- and error-based SQLi on endpoints such as /OS/startup/restore/restoreAdmin.php, /bin/configurations and all /API/ routes. Block payloads containing UNION SELECT, SLEEP(, BENCHMARK(, LOAD_FILE(, INTO OUTFILE in query string or body.
      • Endpoint hardening: do not run the Expedition stack as root; enforce AppArmor or SELinux profiles on Apache and MySQL; remove write permissions for the webserver user outside the strict minimum, neutralising the file-write primitive.
      • IAM hygiene: minimise the credentials stored inside Expedition. Use dedicated service accounts with short-lived API keys instead of production super-user credentials.
      • Configuration change: decommission Expedition once migration work is complete — the product is reaching end of life. Transition to Panorama-native migration workflows for the long term.
      • Strict egress filtering on the Expedition host: deny outbound connections except to defined update endpoints, preventing data exfiltration and second-stage downloads.

    3. Runbook step 3

      Detection rules

      • Apache/nginx access logs: alert on SQLi signatures in GET and POST parameters to Expedition URIs, regex (union\s+select|sleep\(\d+\)|benchmark\(|information_schema|load_file\(|into\s+outfile). Sigma logsource category: webserver, fields cs-uri-query, cs-method=POST, host matches Expedition FQDN.
      • MySQL general log or audit plugin: unusual queries against the users, apikeys, devices tables originating from the webserver context outside normal usage windows; hard alert on SELECT ... INTO OUTFILE and LOAD_FILE.
      • Linux auditd: new files under /var/www/html/ or /tmp/ created by the webserver UID — auditctl -w /var/www/html -p wa -k expedition_write. Correlate with Apache request IDs to pinpoint webshell drops.
      • Sysmon or EDR on the Expedition host: process ancestry apache2/httpd → sh/bash/php → wget/curl/nc is a strong compromise indicator. KQL: DeviceProcessEvents | where InitiatingProcessParentFileName in ("apache2","httpd") and FileName in ("sh","bash","nc","curl","wget","python3").
      • Suricata rule shape: alert http any any -> $EXPEDITION_HOST any (msg:"CVE-2024-9465 SQLi attempt"; flow:to_server,established; content:"POST"; http_method; pcre:"/(union\s+select|load_file|into\s+outfile)/i"; sid:1000946501;). Also alert on URI lengths above 1000 bytes against Expedition endpoints.
      • PAN-OS audit logs: watch for unexpected admin logons or config commits sourced from the Expedition host outside planned migration windows.

    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

    An SQL injection vulnerability in Palo Alto Networks Expedition allows an unauthenticated attacker to reveal Expedition database contents, such as password hashes, usernames, device configurations, and device API keys. With this, attackers can also create and read arbitrary files on the Expedition system.

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

    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
    • 1.2.0 – < 1.2.96
    • 1.2.96
    paloaltonetworksexpedition
    • 1.2.0 – < 1.2.96
    • 1.2.96

    Vendors and products

    Weakness classes (CWE)

    • CWE-89Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command ('SQL Injection')

      Base

      The product constructs all or part of an SQL command using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify the intended SQL command when it is sent to a downstream component. Without sufficient removal or quoting of SQL syntax in user-controllable inputs, the generated SQL query can cause those inputs to be interpreted as SQL instead of ordinary user data.

      Entry at MITRE CWE-89

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