Almost 6,000 unpatched Citrix NetScaler servers remain vulnerable to critical security flaw

Almost 6,000 Citrix NetScaler servers remain unpatched against critical security flaw CVE-2019-19781 almost one month after Citrix belatedly released fixes.

A total of 5,915 systems worldwide remain unsecured, with 40 per cent of the total - 2,660 - located in the US. In the UK, the number stands at 388, down from 470 identified at the end of January.

That's according to scans performed by security intelligence firm Bad Packets, which indicate that companies are only slowly patching their installations, despite warnings that the security flaw could compromise entire corporate network infrastructures. According to security specialists, CVE-2019-19781 if exploited, could enable an unauthenticated attacker to remotely access private network resources and execute arbitrary code. In effect, it represents an open door to the corporate network for attackers. Indeed, earlier in the new year before Citrix finally issued patches, security researchers noted a surge in scans for vulnerable Citrix servers.