PAN-OS: Use of a Weak Cryptographic Algorithm for Stored Password Hashes

Usage of a weak cryptographic algorithm in Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS software where the password hashes of administrator and local user accounts are not created with a sufficient level of computational effort, which allows for password cracking attacks on accounts in normal (non-FIPS-CC) operational mode.

An attacker must have access to the account password hashes to take advantage of this weakness and can acquire those hashes if they are able to gain access to the PAN-OS software configuration.

Fixed versions of PAN-OS software use a secure cryptographic algorithm for account password hashes.

This issue does not impact Prisma Access firewalls.

Work around:
Ensure that any exported firewall configuration files are secured and that only trusted users have firewall management access to prevent the exposure of password hashes.
Using complex and secure passwords for all administrator and local user accounts makes password cracking infeasible and mitigates the impact of this issue.

Switching PAN-OS software from normal mode to FIPS-CC mode ensures that appliances use secure cryptography to store hashed credentials for all local user accounts. However, when you enable FIPS-CC mode, the appliance will reset to the factory default settings and the existing configuration is removed.

Documentation to enable FIPS-CC mode is available here:
https://docs.paloaltonetworks.com/pan-os/10-2/pan-os-admin/certifications/enable-fips-and-common-criteria-support.html