Most Dutch ministries took the Citrix servers offline Friday evening. That confirms a spokesperson in the field of digital government at the Ministry of the Interior against NU.nl after reporting of it AD.
The ministries are thus following the advice of the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), which on Friday strongly advised government agencies to take the Citrix servers offline wherever possible.
With the software from the American company Citrix, civil servants can log in at home to the internal network of the ministries. Taking the servers offline means that civil servants cannot work from home.
According to the spokesperson, taking the servers offline is a preventative measure and there is no indication that hackers have attempted to break into the ministry’s servers.
Extra security measures
Not all ministries take the servers offline, the ministries decide independently how they implement the NCSC advice. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate and the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Fisheries have not taken the servers offline, but speak against it AD about taking extra security measures.
The Ministry of Defense does not want to say “for security reasons” whether Citrix is still being used. The ministries of General Affairs and Education, Culture and Science do not use Citrix software.
Risk of malware and data breaches
Due to a vulnerability in the Citrix network, malicious parties can execute a code in the system remotely. This allows them to take over the entire system, which can result in companies becoming victims of data breaches or ransomware.
The House of Representatives, Schiphol Airport and several Dutch municipalities have now also taken their Citrix servers offline. Citrix expects to be able to offer an update on Monday 20 January at the earliest that removes the vulnerability.
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