CVE-2023-6548 — Netscaler Application Delivery Controller
MEDIUMCVE-2023-6548 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.5) Code Injection vulnerability in citrix netscaler application delivery controller. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2024-01-17) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection') in NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway allows an attacker with access to NSIP, CLIP or SNIP with management interface to perform Authenticated…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2024-01-17. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2024-01-24.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2023-6548.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2023-6548 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 395,249 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection') in NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway allows an attacker with access to NSIP, CLIP or SNIP with management interface to perform Authenticated (low privileged) remote code execution on Management Interface.
Affected Products
netscaler application delivery controllercitrixnetscaler gatewaycitrixResearch 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
Vendor / applianceDetect
Inventory every citrix netscaler application delivery controller deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.
Remediation status
No patch has shipped for CVE-2023-6548 yet — track the citrix netscaler application delivery controller advisory for a fixed release and apply the workarounds below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Stop passing untrusted input into the interpreter or shell: call the affected binary with an argument array rather than a composed command string, reject anything outside a strict allowlist of expected values, and run the component under an account that cannot reach beyond the work it legitimately does. Alongside that, restrict the management interface to trusted networks and apply the vendor's recommended configuration mitigations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-6548 being exploited in your environment?
Detect and block the exploit chain at execution, on systems you cannot patch yet.