Late last year, a customer called me a few days after they deployed their brand-new firewall.
It was a fresh Palo Alto Networks box. Racked, powered, configured — GlobalProtect was online, NAT rules applied, policies in place. The engineer who deployed it did everything by the book.
But within days, their internal security team raised an alert:
Someone was already inside.
Breached Before Burn-In
The firewall had shipped with a vulnerable version of PAN-OS — specifically affected by CVE-2024-3400, a critical 10.0-rated command injection vulnerability in the GlobalProtect portal. No login. No user interaction. Just an open interface and bad timing.
The attackers exploited the device, dumped the config, and began reconnaissance.
Thankfully, that’s as far as they got.
The Near Miss
What stopped them wasn’t the firewall — it was the attacker’s workflow.
This wasn’t a one-off. It was part of a coordinated campaign known as Operation Midnight Eclipse, tracked by Palo Alto’s own Unit 42. Attackers were working from a list of exposed, vulnerable firewalls. Each stage of compromise appeared to be handled by a different operator or team:
Tier 1: Identify targets and gain initial access
Tier 2: Harvest data, configs, environment details
Tier 3: Perform active exploitation — config changes, credential theft, lateral movement
In this case, Tier 1 had done its job. Tier 2 hadn’t arrived yet.
That gap in the attack chain was what saved the customer.
Internal monitoring caught the command-line activity before the second wave hit.
Security Engineering Is More Than Configuration
Let’s talk about the engineer.
He was competent. He followed deployment steps. He’d even passed a vendor certification on the platform.
But that’s the difference:
He knew how to configure security tools.
What he didn’t know how to do was question them.
Security engineers think differently. They don’t assume something is secure just because it came from a reputable vendor. They don’t equate a “fresh out of the box” deployment with safety. They approach every system — including security devices — with suspicion until proven otherwise.
A real security engineer would’ve:
- Checked the PAN-OS version against known vulnerabilities
- Delayed public exposure of the GlobalProtect interface until patched
- Segmented or filtered access during onboarding
- Configured monitoring from Day 0, not Day 6
- Treated the firewall as a potential attack surface, not just a protective barrier
This Isn’t Just About Palo Alto
Let’s be clear — Palo screwed up.
Shipping a critical vulnerability on perimeter gear is inexcusable.
But the broader lesson applies to every vendor and every deployment:
- Your shiny new appliance might already be vulnerable
- The attacker doesn’t care if you’re still “configuring” A security device is still just a device — it has an OS, interfaces, and exploitable flaws
- Certifications are not a substitute for security mindset
If your process only involves following a runbook and ticking boxes from a vendor guide, you’re not doing security — you’re doing support.
Final Thought
Security engineering is not just a role — it’s a perspective. It’s the difference between assuming you’re protected and proving you are. Between “I set it up correctly” and “I verified it couldn’t be abused.”
In this case, the customer got lucky. The attackers were delayed. The internal security team was alert.
But luck is not a security strategy.
Field-Tested Tips for Any Deployment Team
Before you expose a security appliance to the internet:
✅ Check for known CVEs — even brand-new gear can be outdated by the time it’s shipped
✅ Patch before exposure — especially if the interface is public
✅ Isolate during onboarding — use IP allowlists, geo filters, or temporary ACLs
✅ Treat management and user interfaces differently — segment, restrict, monitor
✅ Verify logging and telemetry first — visibility isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s step zero
✅ Assume your perimeter is also a workload — attackers do