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CVE-2020-2021

73
FAUCET Score

CVE-2020-2021 is a critical vulnerability in Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS that allows unauthenticated network-based attackers to bypass SAML authentication when the "Validate Identity Provider Certificate" option is disabled. This affects PAN-OS versions 9.1 (earlier than 9.1.3), 9.0 (earlier than 9.0.9), 8.1 (earlier than 8.1.15), and all 8.0 versions. The vulnerability has a CVSS score of 10.0, indicating a critical severity due to its network-based attack vector, low complexity, and potential for full compromise of protected resources or administrative access to PAN-OS/Panorama web interfaces. This CVE is actively exploited, listed in the KEV catalog, and has garnered significant community attention and media coverage, despite no public exploit code being readily available.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
>= 8.0.0, <= 8.0.20CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:paloaltonetworks:pan-os:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
>= 8.1.0, < 8.1.15CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:paloaltonetworks:pan-os:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
>= 9.0.0, < 9.0.9CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:paloaltonetworks:pan-os:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
>= 9.1.0, < 9.1.3CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:paloaltonetworks:pan-os:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
>= 8.1, < 8.1.15CPE match
cpe:2.3:o:paloaltonetworks:pan-os:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 3.1

10.0CRITICAL

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
CHANGED
Confidentiality Impact
HIGH
Integrity Impact
HIGH
Availability Impact
HIGH
Exploitability Score
3.9
Impact Score
6.0
CvssVersion
3.1

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
4.36%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
90.2%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-26
Model: v2026.06.15
Added to KEV · Mar 25, 2022
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.0436 is in the 84th percentile among its peer group of 36,833 CVEs.

Social Chatter

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.1 Reddit, 0.3 Bluesky, 0.3 Mastodon, and 2.4 GitHub mentions.

Media Mentions

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.3 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.

Remediation

Vendor Patches (1)

paloaltoworkaround availablevia nvd_reference
View patch

References

cisa.gov / known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog
US Government Resource
security.paloaltonetworks.com / CVE-2020-2021
MitigationVendor Advisory