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Citrix Faces Active Exploits from Critical NetScaler Flaw, Urges Immediate Security Patches

Citrix

Business Honor
18 July, 2025

Citrix NetScaler flaw exploited worldwide; agencies and firms urged to patch and terminate sessions.

Following the formal addition of a severe vulnerability impacting its NetScaler ADC and Gateway appliances to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's (CISA) Known Exploited Vulnerabilities list, Citrix is now confronting pressing cybersecurity issues. When a device is set up as a Gateway or AAA virtual server, an attacker can get around authentication thanks to a problem known as Citrix Bleed 2, which was first discovered as CVE-2025-5777.

The vulnerability, which has a 9.3 CVSS rating, is caused by insufficient input validation, which permits out-of-bounds memory reads. Security professionals caution that this might result in the disclosure of private session data, opening the door for illegal access to internal systems, cloud platforms, and business networks. CISA claims that this defect poses an urgent and serious threat to federal systems as well as possibly thousands of corporate networks around the globe.

Despite Citrix's original claim that there was no proof of active exploitation, CISA verified that malevolent actors had already started to target the vulnerability. According to researcher Kevin Beaumont, exploitation activity started in mid-June and was connected to threat clusters and ransomware organizations based in China and Russia. Data from the threat intelligence company GreyNoise reveals attempts at exploitation from a number of nations, focusing on sectors such as government, healthcare, telecom, and finance. On June 17, Citrix published a patch advising users to update to version 14.1-43.56 or above. Experts stress that patching is insufficient on its own, though. To avoid session hijacking, administrators must also end all running sessions, particularly those that are authenticated using Gateway or AAA.

Despite criticism for its tardy recognition of the exploit's scope, the corporation is attempting to control the repercussions. Federal agencies have only 24 hours to put mitigations in place, which is one of the shortest compliance deadlines ever set by CISA.