Identify if the Palo Alto IDS/IPS has a signature for a specific vulnerability based on the CVE

[RobertShawver]

We been working with Palo Alto to identify a strategy to help identify if the Palo Alto IDS/IPS has a signature for a specific vulnerability based on the CVE number. We should roughly be able to support this use case, but there will be some limitations:

1. We can verify that a signature has been downloaded to the Panorama, but NOT if it is applied to individual firewalls or individual rules.
2. We can verify the DEFAULT action for a signature, but not a CUSTOM action for a signature.

Technical Details

Palo Alto downloads "content packs" which contain IDS/IPS signatures. The "content packs" are then applied to "vulnerability profiles" that are customized for "Inbound," "Outbound," etc. The "vulnerability profiles" are then applied to individual firewall rules as configured by Hershey.

Via the API, we can pull details about IDS/IPS signatures including the CVE number that it relates to. We can also pull the vulnerability profile configuration. However, we cannot link an IDS/IPS signature to a "content pack" via the API. That means that we cannot validate whether a specific IDS/IPS rule for a CVE has been applied to our environment via a vulnerability profile.

Can anyone think of a way around this?

[LAYER_8]

Indeed. See below example for CVE-2015-8650, wherein you are able to see the first release and recent update fields for a signature. 

To access the Palo threat vault, log into your CSP account at support.paloaltonetworks.com, scroll down to resources, click threat DB, profit. 

I am not currently aware of a way to access our threat vault information via API. Best practices for threat prevention includes hourly content updates with action set to download and install, for which you would be able to validate that environmental content # against a specific CVE #.

Hope this helps!