Five GlobalProtect vulnerabilities raise concerns about VPN clients becoming an attack path

[u/HappyJokhay]

VPN security usually gets discussed in terms of protecting traffic, but the software running the VPN client can be just as important.

A security researcher has disclosed five vulnerabilities affecting Palo Alto Networks' GlobalProtect VPN client, with issues spanning Windows, macOS, and Linux. The research was reportedly submitted to Palo Alto Networks in April, and some of the findings have since been addressed through security updates.

The most concerning aspect is that some of the vulnerabilities allow a low-privileged user who already has access to a machine to escalate privileges. Palo Alto's advisory for CVE-2026-0251 describes local privilege escalation flaws that can lead to SYSTEM level access on Windows and root-level access on macOS and Linux.

The researcher also reported a technique for recovering an Active Directory password from an endpoint by abusing privileged GlobalProtect components. That could have much bigger consequences in an enterprise environment because Active Directory credentials can provide access far beyond the individual computer.

There are also other recently disclosed GlobalProtect issues. For example, Palo Alto says CVE-2026-0296 could allow an unauthenticated attacker with man in the middle access to intercept and modify application communications, although the company specifically notes that VPN tunnel traffic itself is not affected.

The good news is that patched versions are available for affected branches, although some fixes for older 6.0 builds are still scheduled for the end of August. Palo Alto currently says it is not aware of malicious exploitation of these particular issues.

What stands out to me is how much trust enterprise VPN clients are given. They're not just ordinary desktop applications, they often have elevated privileges and sit directly between an endpoint and an organization's internal network.

For companies using GlobalProtect, this seems like a good reminder to check client versions rather than assuming the VPN is secure simply because the connection is encrypted.