Last updated on June 3, 2026 at 10:02 am
We’re aware of a critical vulnerability in Palo Alto’s GlobalProtect VPN application used under our Remote Access solution.
If exploited, a remote attacker could connect to school networks as a VPN user – you can find more information in Palo Alto’s advisory.
It’s important to note that the vulnerability only exists for users of N4L’s Remote Access in schools that have the service enabled.
To help protect schools from this vulnerability, we’re taking a two-step approach.
Step one involves a temporary mitigation we’ll apply from this evening, which may have a minor impact on the login process, where Remote Access users will be prompted to log in to GlobalProtect on a more regular basis.
Step two involves us applying the Palo Alto-provided patch, which will protect against this vulnerability, and after which we’ll remove the mitigation under step one to ensure a seamless login experience. This will be rolled out over the next week.
Apart from the login experience, Remote Access users shouldn’t notice any further impact as a result of these changes.
We’re taking this approach as part of our ongoing commitment to cybersecurity to help protect schools and kura, and apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
Please follow this alert for further updates or contact [email protected] if you have any further questions.