A problem with a protection mechanism in the Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR agent on Windows allows a local Windows administrator to disable the agent. This issue may be leveraged by malware to perform malicious activity without detection.
Weakness
One or more system settings or configuration elements can be externally controlled by a user.
Affected Software
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cortex_xdr_agent | Paloaltonetworks | 8.7.0 (including) | 8.7.101 (excluding) |
| Cortex_xdr_agent | Paloaltonetworks | 7.9 (including) | 7.9 (including) |
| Cortex_xdr_agent | Paloaltonetworks | 8.3 (including) | 8.3 (including) |
| Cortex_xdr_agent | Paloaltonetworks | 8.9.0 (including) | 8.9.0 (including) |
| Cortex_xdr_agent | Paloaltonetworks | 9.0.0 (including) | 9.0.0 (including) |
Potential Mitigations
- Compartmentalize the system to have “safe” areas where trust boundaries can be unambiguously drawn. Do not allow sensitive data to go outside of the trust boundary and always be careful when interfacing with a compartment outside of the safe area.
- Ensure that appropriate compartmentalization is built into the system design, and the compartmentalization allows for and reinforces privilege separation functionality. Architects and designers should rely on the principle of least privilege to decide the appropriate time to use privileges and the time to drop privileges.
Related Attack Patterns
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/13.html
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/146.html
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/176.html
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/203.html
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/270.html
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/271.html
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/579.html
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/69.html
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/76.html
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/77.html