It includes a package system that allows system administrators to easily extend the product without adding potential security vulnerabilities and bloat to the base distribution. The project can be used as both router and firewall. PfSense® is a freely distributed and open source BSD operating system derived from the well known m0n0wall project, but with radically different goals like using Packet Filter and the latest FreeBSD technologies. Existing users who are not administrators, but only have access to the stated pages, can no longer edit advanced option fields until the new privileges have been granted. A new set of privileges has been created to delegate access to edit the advanced options fields on these pages.A privilege escalation issue where an authenticated user granted access to edit OpenVPN servers, clients, or client-specific overrides could have executed shell scripts via OpenVPN advanced options to gain higher privileges.A privilege escalation issue where an authenticated user granted access to the Dashboard or widgets could have gained access to pages for which they otherwise would not have privileges.A privilege escalation issue where an authenticated user could have used a technique similar to directory traversal to gain access to pages for which they otherwise would not have privileges.Security: Manage Network Security With pfSense Firewall Birmingham, UK: Packt, 2018.Mastering pfSense, Second Edition Birmingham, UK: Packt Publishing, 2018.
^ "pfSense CE 2.5.2-RELEASE Now Available"."pfSense and FreeBSD Pull Back on Kernel WireGuard Support". "In-kernel WireGuard is on its way to FreeBSD and the pfSense router". Archived from the original on 12 September 2015.
"Interview with Jeff Starkweather, Chris Buechler and Scott Ullrich". "Happy 10th Anniversary to pfSense Open Source Software". Archived from the original on 3 October 2011. "Configure a professional firewall using pfSense".
The July 2021 release of pfSense CE 2.5.2 version includes the WireGuard.
In February 2021, feature updates of pfSense CE 2.5.0 and pfSense Plus 21.02 included a kernel WireGuard implementation, however, following the reporting of issues in the code by WireGuard founder Jason Donenfeld, it was discontinued in March 2021.
The name was derived from the fact that the software uses the packet-filtering tool, PF. The pfSense project started in 2004 as a fork of the m0n0wall project by Chris Buechler and Scott Ullrich and the first release was in 2006.