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PoC exploits for Citrix ADC and Gateway CVE-2019

criticalExploit / PoCimportance 60CVE-2019-19781

Vulnerabilities mentionedAll →

CVEVulnerabilityCVSSEPSSFlagsAffectedExposurePublished
CVE-2019-19781
Unauthenticated path traversal RCE in Citrix ADC, Gateway, and SD-WAN WANOP

CVE-2019-19781 is a path-traversal flaw (classified CWE-22, though CISA's description calls it unspecified) in Citrix ADC (formerly NetScaler ADC), Citrix Gateway, and Citrix SD-WAN WANOP appliances that lets an unauthenticated remote attacker traverse directories via crafted requests and execute arbitrary commands on the appliance, typically with root privileges. It is triggered by sending specially crafted directory-traversal requests (crafted URLs/requests to the appliance's management or VPN endpoints), which lets the attacker write files and run commands with no credentials. Successful exploitation yields arbitrary code execution on the appliance, enabling theft of VPN/ADC credentials, lateral movement into the corporate network, and installation of persistent backdoors. Any organization running affected ADC, Gateway, or SD-WAN WANOP firmware is affected, with internet-facing gateways used for remote access at the highest risk. Exploitation is confirmed in the wild: the vulnerability is on CISA's KEV (added 2021-11-03) with known ransomware use, EPSS assigns near-certain (100.0%) probability of exploitation within 30 days, and no public PoC is listed despite confirmed abuse.

Do: Upgrade Citrix ADC, Gateway, and SD-WAN WANOP appliances to the fixed firmware builds listed in Citrix advisory CTX267020; if patching cannot be done immediately, apply Citrix's published interim mitigation and restrict internet exposure to the appliance. Because exploitation grants root code execution and persistence, after patching hunt for indicators of compromise (unexpected nsroot account, modified system files, crontab/scheduled entries), kill all active and inactive sessions, and rotate appliance and VPN credentials. Prioritize internet-facing gateways and comply with CISA's required action to apply vendor updates.

9.8100% KEV ransomware
  • Citrix Application Delivery Controller (ADC) Supported ADC firmware lines in effect at disclosure (10.5, 11.0, 11.1, 12.0, 12.1, 13.0) prior to patched builds, per Citrix advisory CTX267020; exact builds n
  • Citrix Gateway Supported Gateway firmware lines (sharing the ADC codebase, same affected releases 10.5-13.0) prior to patched builds, per Citrix advisory; exact builds not spe
  • Citrix SD-WAN WANOP Appliance Affected appliance models (4000, 4100, 5000, 5100) running pre-patch firmware in the 10.2.1-11.4.1 range, per Citrix advisory; exact builds not specified in the
massroughly 80,000-100,000+ internet-exposed Citrix ADC/Gateway appliances at the time of disclosure, with a far larger total installed base (including…
Full article386 words · extracted from securityaffairs.com · click to collapse

Experts announced the availability online of proof-of-concept exploit code for CVE-2019-19781 flaw in Citrix NetScaler ADC and Citrix NetScaler Gateway servers.

While security researchers were warning of ongoing scans for Citrix Application Delivery Controller (NetScaler ADC) and Citrix Gateway (NetScaler Gateway) servers affected by the CVE-2019-19781 vulnerability, many experts are announcing the availability online of proof-of-concept exploit code ([12]).

Researchers at MDSsec published technical details of the vulnerability along with a video that shows the exploit they have developed, but they decided to not release it to avoid miscreants use it in the wild.

In December Citrix disclosed the critical CVE-2019-19781 vulnerability and explained that it could be exploited by attackers to access company networks.

It has been estimated that 80,000 companies in 158 countries are potentially at risk, most of them in the U.S. (38%), followed by the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and Australia. 

The CVE-2019-19781 vulnerability was discovered by Mikhail Klyuchnikov from Positive Technologies. 

“If that vulnerability is exploited, attackers obtain direct access to the company’s local network from the Internet. This attack does not require access to any accounts, and therefore can be performed by any external attacker.” reads the post published by Positive Technologies.

“Positive Technologies experts determined that at least 80,000 companies in 158 countries are potentially at risk.”

CVE-2019-19781 Citrix

The vulnerability affects all supported versions of the product, and all supported platforms, including Citrix ADC and Citrix Gateway 13.0, Citrix ADC and NetScaler Gateway 12.1, Citrix ADC and NetScaler Gateway 12.0, Citrix ADC and NetScaler Gateway 11.1, and also Citrix NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway 10.5.

The experts pointed out the exploitation of the vulnerability does not require access to any accounts, for this reason, the issue could be triggered by any external attacker to achieve unauthorized access to published applications and other internal network resources from the Citrix servers.

Citrix has released measures to mitigate the flaw, it recommends to update of all vulnerable software versions.

Threat actors have reverse engineered the patches released by Citrix and have developed their exploit code.

The number of vulnerable Citrix systems exposed online are according to Shodan are over 125,000 and it is important to fix them as soon as possible.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – Citrix Server, hacking)

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