CISA has issued a critical directive instructing all U.S. federal agencies to immediately disconnect vulnerable Ivanti Connect Secure and Policy Secure VPN appliances by Saturday. This directive follows a recent emergency directive (ED 24-01) that focused on securing Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) against two zero-day vulnerabilities. Ivanti appliances have been actively exploited, with attackers leveraging authentication bypass (CVE-2023-46805) and command injection (CVE-2024-21887) flaws since December. Ivanti also warned of a third zero-day (CVE-2024-21893), a server-side request forgery vulnerability. While security patches have been released, CISA’s urgent action highlights the severity of the threat.
To mitigate the risk, Ivanti recommends a factory reset before applying patches to prevent attackers from gaining persistence during upgrades. With over 22,000 Ivanti ICS VPNs exposed online, the urgency to disconnect them is evident. CISA emphasizes the substantial threat and significant risk posed by compromised Ivanti VPN appliances, prompting the order for disconnection by Saturday. Agencies are not only instructed to disconnect promptly but also to continue monitoring for signs of compromise, isolate affected systems, and perform necessary audits and mitigations. The recovery process involves exporting configurations, factory resetting, rebuilding with patched software, and revoking certificates, keys, and passwords.
