A privilege escalation (PE) vulnerability in the XML API of Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS software enables an authenticated PAN-OS administrator with restricted privileges to use a compromised XML API key to perform actions as a higher privileged PAN-OS administrator. For example, an administrator with "Virtual system administrator (read-only)" access could use an XML API key of a "Virtual system administrator" to perform write operations on the virtual system configuration even though they should be limited to read-only operations.