CVE-2020-1981: Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS

High severity, CVSS 7.8. EPSS: 0.4% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

A predictable temporary filename vulnerability in PAN-OS allows local privilege escalation. This issue allows a local attacker who bypassed the restricted shell to execute commands as a low privileged user and gain root access on the PAN-OS hardware or virtual appliance. This issue affects only PAN-OS 8.1 versions earlier than PAN-OS 8.1.13. This issue does not affect PAN-OS 7.1, PAN-OS 9.0, or later PAN-OS versions.

Affected products

• Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS: from 8.1.0, before 8.1.13 (fixed in 8.1.13)

Published 2020-03-11. Last modified 2026-06-17.