CVE-2019-13608
HIGHCVE-2019-13608 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) XML External Entity (XXE) vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2021-11-03) and has been used in ransomware campaigns — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
Citrix StoreFront Server before 1903, 7.15 LTSR before CU4 (3.12.4000), and 7.6 LTSR before CU8 (3.0.8000) allows XXE attacks.
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2021-11-03 — including use in ransomware campaigns. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2022-05-03.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2019-13608.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2019-13608 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 394,415 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 10–50% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
Citrix StoreFront Server before 1903, 7.15 LTSR before CU4 (3.12.4000), and 7.6 LTSR before CU8 (3.0.8000) allows XXE attacks.
Affected Products
storefront servercitrixResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
VulnerabilityDetect
Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).
Remediation status
No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2019-13608 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How to detect CVE-2019-13608
A community-maintained Nuclei template exists for this CVE. You can scan for it directly:
nuclei -id cve-2019-13608 -u https://target- Template
- Citrix StoreFront Server - XML External Entity
- Severity
- high
- Impact
- Attackers can read arbitrary files, perform server-side request forgery, or cause denial of service through XXE attacks.
- Remediation
- Update to version 1903 or later for StoreFront, CU4 or later for 7.15 LTSR, CU8 or later for 7.6 LTSR.
Template by ProjectDiscovery nuclei-templates (daffainfo), MIT licensed. View the full template. Scan only systems you are authorised to test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2019-13608 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.