Netgate pfSense Plus/pfSense CE Dashboard index.php file inclusion

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Netgate pfSense Plus and pfSense CE. It has been classified as very critical. Affected by this vulnerability is an unknown functionality of the file index.php of the component Dashboard. Performing a manipulation results in file inclusion. This vulnerability is reported as CVE-2026-97730. The attack is possible to be carried out remotely. No exploit exists.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as very critical, was found in Netgate pfSense Plus and pfSense CE (unknown version). This affects an unknown code block of the file index.php of the component Dashboard. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a file inclusion vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-73. The product allows user input to control or influence paths or file names that are used in filesystem operations. This is going to have an impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

In Netgate pfSense Plus before 26.07 and pfSense CE before 2.9.0, a Local File Inclusion (LFI) vulnerability in the Dashboard (index.php) widget sequence data handling allows an authenticated attacker to execute arbitrary PHP code. To exploit this, an attacker with privileges to modify Dashboard settings and write arbitrary files to the pfSense firewall system (e.g., /tmp/test.widget.php) can submit a crafted widget sequence value containing a path traversal payload (e.g., ../../../../../../../../../../../tmp/test). The Dashboard will subsequently read and execute the arbitrary PHP file as if it were a standard widget.

It is possible to read the advisory at redmine.pfsense.org. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2026-97730 since 09/25/2026. The exploitability is told to be easy. It is possible to initiate the attack remotely. Additional levels of successful authentication are required for exploitation. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit. The pricing for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 09/25/2026).

By approaching the search of inurl:index.php it is possible to find vulnerable targets with Google Hacking.

There is no information about possible countermeasures known. It may be suggested to replace the affected object with an alternative product.

Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Type

• Firewall Software

Vendor

• Netgate

Name

• pfSense CE
• pfSense Plus

License

• open-source

CPE 2.3info

• 🔒

CPE 2.2info

• 🔒

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CVSSv3info

CVSSv2info

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Entryinfo

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