CVE-2025-56333
📋 TL;DR
A critical authentication bypass vulnerability in Fossorial Pangolin's 2FA component allows remote attackers to escalate privileges without proper authentication. This affects all users running Pangolin version 1.6.2 and earlier. Attackers can gain administrative access to affected systems.
💻 Affected Systems
- Fossorial Pangolin
📦 What is this software?
Pangolin by Pangolin
⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact
Worst Case
Complete system compromise with administrative privileges, allowing data theft, system modification, and further network penetration.
Likely Case
Unauthorized administrative access leading to data exposure, configuration changes, and potential lateral movement within the network.
If Mitigated
Limited impact if proper network segmentation, monitoring, and access controls are implemented to contain potential breaches.
🎯 Exploit Status
Proof of concept available in public gist. Exploitation requires network access to Pangolin instance.
🛠️ Fix & Mitigation
✅ Official Fix
Patch Version: v1.6.3 or later
Vendor Advisory: https://github.com/fosrl/pangolin
Restart Required: Yes
Instructions:
1. Backup current configuration. 2. Stop Pangolin service. 3. Update to v1.6.3 or later from official repository. 4. Restart Pangolin service. 5. Verify functionality.
🔧 Temporary Workarounds
Disable 2FA Temporarily
allDisable two-factor authentication to remove vulnerable component while planning upgrade
Edit Pangolin configuration file and set 'enable_2fa: false'
Restart Pangolin service
Network Isolation
linuxRestrict network access to Pangolin instance
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport [pangolin_port] -s [trusted_ips] -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport [pangolin_port] -j DROP
🧯 If You Can't Patch
- Implement strict network access controls to limit exposure
- Enable detailed logging and monitoring for authentication attempts
🔍 How to Verify
Check if Vulnerable:
Check Pangolin version: if version <= 1.6.2, system is vulnerableCheck Version:
pangolin --version or check configuration file version fieldVerify Fix Applied:
Verify version is 1.6.3 or later and test 2FA functionality📡 Detection & Monitoring
Log Indicators:
- Unusual authentication patterns
- Multiple failed 2FA attempts followed by successful admin login
- Authentication from unexpected IP addresses
Network Indicators:
- Unusual traffic to Pangolin authentication endpoints
- Authentication requests bypassing normal 2FA flow
SIEM Query:
source="pangolin.log" AND (event="authentication_success" AND user="admin" AND NOT 2fa="completed")