CVE-2023-4966: Exploitation of Citrix NetScaler Information Disclosure Vulnerability

Last updated at Fri, 27 Oct 2023 16:50:27 GMT

On October 10, 2023, Citrix published an advisory on two vulnerabilities affecting NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway. The more critical of these two issues is CVE-2023-4966, a sensitive information disclosure vulnerability that allows an attacker to read large amounts of memory after the end of a buffer. Notably, that memory includes session tokens, which permits an attacker to impersonate another authenticated user. On October 17, Citrix updated the advisory to indicate that they have observed exploitation in the wild. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has also added CVE-2023-4966 to their Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.

On October 25, 2023, security firm Assetnote released an analysis, including a proof of concept, that demonstrates how to steal session tokens. Since then, Shadowserver has noted an uptick in scanning for that endpoint. Rapid7 MDR is investigating potential exploitation of this vulnerability in a customer environment but is not yet able to confirm with high confidence that CVE-2023-4966 was the initial access vector.

Rapid7 recommends taking emergency action to mitigate CVE-2023-4966. Threat actors, including ransomware groups, have historically shown strong interest in Citrix NetScaler ADC vulnerabilities. We expect exploitation to increase. Our research team has a technical assessment of the vulnerability and its impact in AttackerKB.

Affected Products

Citrix published a blog on October 23 that has exploitation and mitigation details. Their advisory indicates that CVE-2023-4966 affects the following supported versions of NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway:

* NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway 14.1 before 14.1-8.50

* NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway 13.1 before 13.1-49.15

* NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway 13.0 before 13.0-92.19

* NetScaler ADC 13.1-FIPS before 13.1-37.164

* NetScaler ADC 12.1-FIPS before 12.1-55.300

* NetScaler ADC 12.1-NDcPP before 12.1-55.300

Note: NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway version 12.1 is now End-of-Life (EOL) and is vulnerable.

In order to be exploitable, the appliance must be configured as a Gateway (VPN virtual server, ICA Proxy, CVPN, RDP Proxy) OR AAA virtual server (which is a very common configuration). Citrix has indicated that customers using Citrix-managed cloud services or Citrix-managed Adaptive Authentication do not need to take any action.

Mitigation Guidance

Citrix NetScaler ADC and Gateway users should update to a fixed version immediately, without waiting for a typical patch cycle to occur. Additionally, Citrix’s blog on CVE-2023-4966 recommends killing all active and persistent sessions using the following commands:

kill icaconnection -all

kill rdp connection -all

kill pcoipConnection -all

kill aaa session -all

clear lb persistentSessions

For more information, see Citrix’s advisory.

Rapid7 Customers

InsightVM and Nexpose customers can assess their exposure to both of the CVEs in Citrix’s advisory (CVE-2023-4966, CVE-2023-4967) with authenticated vulnerability checks available in the October 23 content release.