Thousands of Palo Alto Networks firewalls have been hacked via two recently patched security vulnerabilities.
Two security holes allowed hackers to install malware on Palo Alto Networks firewalls, and gain access to the devices. The intruders were able to remotely control the devices and install cryptocurrency miners and other malware.
2,000 devices
Hackers hijacked about 2,000 devices, up to a day after Palo Alto Networks released a patch for the security vulnerabilities, The Register knows. After the availability of the patches last week, the number of compromised devices dropped to about 800.
“Palo Alto Networks has observed threat activity. Which exploits this vulnerability against a limited number of management Web interfaces exposed to Internet traffic from outside the network,” according to the vendor’s security advisory for the two vulnerabilities.
Palo Alto Networks released patches on Tuesday. It remains unclear who is behind the attacks and how many devices have actually been compromised. Just recently, two critical security vulnerabilities were discovered in Palo Alto Networks’ Expedition migration tool.