Security Resilience

CVE-2017-15944

Memory Safety in Paloaltonetworks Pan-Os ≤ 6.1.19

CISA KEVActive ExploitationEUVD ExploitedPublic PoCMemory Safety
Published
11 December 2017
Modified
22 April 2026
KEV Added
18 August 2022
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 9.8
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.98 99.9th percentile
Risk Priority 97 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2017-15944 is a critical-severity Improper Input Validation (CWE-20) vulnerability in Paloaltonetworks Pan-Os. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).

Operationally, ranked in the top 0.1% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; CISA has added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary

Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.

Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS versions prior to 6.1.19, 7.0.19, 7.1.14, and 8.0.6 contain a remote code execution vulnerability that affects the management interface. The flaw is tracked under CVE-2017-15944 with a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 and is associated with CWE-20 and CWE-119 input validation and buffer issues.

Unauthenticated attackers with network access to the management interface can send specially crafted requests to execute arbitrary code on the affected appliance, resulting in full compromise of confidentiality, integrity, and availability without any user interaction.

Vendor guidance and public references direct administrators to apply the listed PAN-OS updates that remediate the issue. Public exploit code for the vulnerability has been published on Exploit-DB, confirming that working proof-of-concept attacks are available.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

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.

CWE(s)
KEV Date Added
18 August 2022

Related Threats

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2024-3400Same product: Paloaltonetworks Pan-Osboth on KEV
CVE-2024-5913Same product: Paloaltonetworks Pan-Os
CVE-2026-0282Same product: Paloaltonetworks Pan-Os
CVE-2024-3385Same product: Paloaltonetworks Pan-Os
CVE-2023-6549Same product class: VPN / SSL gatewayboth on KEV
CVE-2023-4966Same product class: VPN / SSL gatewayboth on KEV
CVE-2026-88771Same product class: VPN / SSL gatewayboth on KEV
CVE-2021-22894Same product class: VPN / SSL gatewayboth on KEV
CVE-2020-8195Same product class: VPN / SSL gatewayboth on KEV
CVE-2026-88774Same product class: VPN / SSL gateway

Affected Assets

paloaltonetworks
pan-os
≤ 6.1.19 · 7.0.0 — 7.0.19 · 7.1.0 — 7.1.14

Mitigating Controls

Likely Mitigating Controls AI

Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.

addresses: CWE-20 CWE-119

Security testing and evaluation at multiple SDLC stages directly detects missing or flawed input validation, with the required remediation process ensuring fixes are applied.

addresses: CWE-20

Security testing and developer training directly verify and enforce proper input validation, reducing exploitability of injection and malformed-data weaknesses.

addresses: CWE-119

Managed runtimes used by platform-independent applications (e.g., JVM, CLR) enforce memory safety, preventing most buffer overflows that require direct memory manipulation.

addresses: CWE-20

Directly implements checks on information inputs to reject invalid data before processing.

addresses: CWE-119

Memory protections (e.g., W^X, ASLR) make exploitation of buffer-boundary violations far harder to turn into code execution.

addresses: CWE-119

Detects exploitation attempts that produce memory corruption, crashes, or anomalous behavior.

addresses: CWE-20

Spam protection mechanisms perform filtering and detection on inbound/outbound messages, directly compensating for missing or weak input validation of unsolicited content.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

blocks

A.8.25 mandates security requirements, secure coding guidelines, checkpoints, testing (incl. code scans) and developer training in the SDLC, which reaches a slice of input validation defects but leaves the majority (incomplete enforcement, second-order inputs, parser differentials, post-validation canonicalization) unaddressed as in the SA-3 and A.8.28 anchors.

blocks

Mandating input controls that include integrity checks and input validation ensures that untrusted data is examined before use, blocking the root cause of many injection and malformed-data weaknesses.

blocks

Security-by-design principles explicitly call for data validation and sanitization at every layer, reducing the chance that malformed or malicious input will be processed without scrutiny.

prevents

Requiring language-specific secure coding standards, peer review, SAST and documented mitigation of common programming errors forces validation of all inputs before they are trusted.

finds

Testing against a defined set of requirements and using code review plus vulnerability scanning forces validation of inputs and handling of unanticipated conditions, reducing the chance that malformed data will be accepted.

Hardening callouts derived

DISA STIG baselines are authored against specific weaknesses. Where this CVE cites a broad weakness class, the mapping is not asserted at that abstraction (owner ruling, 2026-09-25: grade only at Base and below), so no rule is shown here rather than a rule shown against the wrong grain.

  • No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-20, a class-level weakness, and none of its children carries one either.
  • No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-119, a class-level weakness. Rules are authored against its narrower children: CWE-823.

References