The HHS urged Citrix Application Delivery Controller and Citrix Gateway users to check that their systems are not vulnerable to a critical unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability, which is being actively exploited by Chinese hackers and other state-sponsored hacking groups.
Citrix ADC is a comprehensive application delivery and load-balancing solution that is used by healthcare organizations to ensure the constant availability of critical clinical applications, including electronic medical records. Citrix Gateway is used by healthcare organizations for remote access and for providing single sign-on across all applications.
The HHS issued a threat brief Dec. 16 stating that there is a flaw in the systems that can be exploited remotely by unauthenticated users to execute code and completely compromise the system.
The HHS said all healthcare organizations should conduct a review of their inventories to see if they use Citrix ADC or Citrix Gateway and to check whether these platforms are vulnerable.
If so, patching the vulnerabilities should be prioritized, according to the HHS.