Active maintenance
If you are on active maintenance, we strongly recommend upgrading to the most current release of 23.9.8 or later. Using the most current release of ScreenConnect includes security updates, bug fixes, and enhancements not found in older releases.
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Off maintenance
ConnectWise has provided a patched version of 22.4.20001 available to any partner regardless of maintenance status as an interim step to mitigate the vulnerability. If you are not currently under maintenance, please upgrade your servers to version 22.4.20001 at minimum or to your latest eligible patched version that includes the remediation for CVE-2024-1709.
ConnectWise has rolled out an additional mitigation step for unpatched, on-premise users that suspends an instance if it is not on version 23.9.8 or later. If your instance is found to be on an outdated version, an alert will be sent with instructions on how to perform the necessary actions to release the server.
Today, ScreenConnect version 23.9.10.8817 was released containing a number of fixes to improve customer experience. It is always recommended to be on the latest version but 23.9.8 is the minimum version that remediated the reported vulnerabilities.
We've received notifications of suspicious activity that our incident response team has investigated. The following IP addresses were used by threat actors. We are making them available for protection and defense.IOCs:
Vulnerabilities were reported February 13, 2024, through our vulnerability disclosure channel via the ConnectWise Trust Center. There is no evidence that these vulnerabilities have been exploited in the wild, but immediate action must be taken by on-premise partners to address these identified security risks.
On February 13, 2024, an independent researcher ethically and responsibly reported two potential vulnerabilities using the ConnectWise vulnerability disclosure program through the ConnectWise Trust Center, including a potential critical vulnerability that would allow anonymous attackers to exploit an authentication bypass flaw to create admin accounts on publicly exposed instances. Essentially, a bad actor could mimic the role as system admin, delete all other users and take over the instance.
Partners no longer under maintenance are eligible to install version 22.4.20001 at no additional cost, which will fix both vulnerabilities. However, this should be treated as an interim step. ConnectWise recommends updating to the latest release to get all the current security patches and therefore all partners should upgrade to 23.9.8 or higher as outlined in the upgrade path below.
On-premise partners
A patch is available to you if you are a self-hosted or on-premise partner; we urge you to update your servers to version 23.9.8 immediately to apply the patch.
ConnectWise cloud operations and engineering teams worked together to mitigate all ConnectWise hosted cloud instances of ScreenConnect within 48 hours of validation of the critical vulnerability. ConnectWise was able to mitigate the issue for partners in ConnectWise hosted environments without requiring a version update, because of the nature of the critical vulnerability. We next focused on creating a new build that patched both reported vulnerabilities and deployed it to partners in all cloud hosted environments (version 23.9.8). Cloud partners were not required to update agents to remediate the vulnerabilities. Partners on version 23.9.8 or higher are considered patched.
ScreenConnect clients (agents) are not directly impacted by this issue. This is because the identified vulnerabilities involve an authentication bypass and path traversal issues within the server software itself (unpatched ScreenConnect instances version 23.9.7 and below), rather than any vulnerabilities within the client software that is installed on end-user devices. As a best practice, partners should update their agents after a server upgrade, but it is not required to mitigate this vulnerability. Check the ConnectWise University for more information on reinstalling and upgrading an access agent.
Once the vulnerability was validated on February 14, 2024, ConnectWise cloud operations and engineering teams worked together to mitigate all ConnectWise hosted cloud instances of ScreenConnect. Due to the nature of the critical vulnerability, ConnectWise was able to mitigate the issue for partners in ConnectWise hosted environments quickly without requiring a version update. In tandem, we focused on creating new builds that patched both reported vulnerabilities for the current stable release and for versions dating back to 2022. The goal was to provide an upgrade path to a patched release to as many on-prem partners as possible. It took more time to update and QA multiple older builds for on-prem, whereas our cloud environments managed by ConnectWise were standardized to a smaller list of more current releases.
ScreenConnect version 23.9.10 is just the next release of ScreenConnect. The vulnerabilities were patched in versions 23.9.8 or higher. Partners on 23.9.8 or higher are considered patched for CVE-2024-1708 and CVE-2024-1709. New releases in the cloud will be returning to our normal rolling schedule moving forward.
If you suspect your ScreenConnect software may be compromised, prioritize securing your systems. Follow your existing incident response playbook to isolate the affected servers and create backups to analyze later. Don't put those servers back online until they're thoroughly investigated, rebuilt, and secured with the latest patches.
Remember, a compromised ScreenConnect server might not be the only point of entry. Your incident response should encompass your entire system to identify and address any broader security vulnerabilities. We encourage you to review and follow the ConnectWise ScreenConnect Remediation and Hardening Guide by Mandiant .
Review the guide thoroughly and pay particular attention to the Internal Users on your on-prem server to verify that there are no unknown internal user accounts. Review file system, enhanced Windows event logs or EDR solutions for suspicious activity, such as web shell commands or other compromise indicators. Please seek assistance from specialized incident response and forensics firms if potential impacted files are identified.
Partners can then follow our instructions to migrate to the cloud: Migrate to ScreenConnect Cloud from a Windows server - ConnectWise. Post migration, partners should verify agent counts, uninstall agents, and decommission the on-premises server. This should include removing DNS records and firewall rules allotted to the on premises ScreenConnect server.
Licenses were paused for servers that have checked in using an unpatched version. You will be able to upgrade to the current/patched versions, and if the license is eligible for the installed version, it will automatically be restored by the license server. However, the key would still need to be valid for the version you're using. If the key is not valid, it will stay as revoked, and you'd need to upgrade the key. To update upgrade your on-prem license, click here.
ScreenConnect clients (agents) are not directly impacted by this issue. This is because the identified vulnerabilities involve an authentication bypass and path traversal issues within the server software itself (unpatched ScreenConnect instances version 23.9.7 and below), rather than any vulnerabilities within the client software that is installed on end-user devices. Partners have notified us that certain A/V vendors have flagged agents. These reports should be registered as false positives to your vendors, but we're also working with select vendors to fix the issue.
In addition, please update your primary contact details by reaching out to your dedicated account manager. You can also ensure your email preferences are correctly configured in our online self-service ConnectWise Profile and Preference Center (learn more here).
If you have confirmed that your primary contact information is accurate and you are still not receiving emails from our system, we kindly request that you share the primary contact email with us for further investigation.
We encourage you to update your primary contact details by reaching out to your dedicated account manager. You can also ensure your email preferences are correctly configured in our online self-service ConnectWise Profile and Preference Center (learn more here).
Some of our cloud-hosted partners (including RMM/Command partners) were concerned they were possibly compromised due to a brief downtime on February 21. This was due to an accelerated rollout of the formal patch version (23.9) to put us back on a proper release schedule. The average downtime for this was around 10 minutes.
Check your Status/Overview page and review the Version Check. Review the Latest Eligible Version row; this will detail the latest version of ScreenConnect that your license permits you to upgrade to.
Partners no longer under maintenance are eligible to install version 22.4.20001 at no additional cost, which will fix CVE-2024-1709, the critical vulnerability. However, this should be treated as an interim step. ConnectWise recommends updating to the latest release to get all the current security patches and therefore all partners should upgrade to 23.9.8 or higher using the upgrade path outlined above.
Once you have patched your on-prem instance of ScreenConnect to the latest version, you should review users with access to ScreenConnect, remove any that are not recognized, change passwords, and enable MFA.
ScreenConnect clients (agents) are not directly impacted by this issue. This is because the identified vulnerabilities involve an authentication bypass and path traversal issues within the server software itself (unpatched ScreenConnect instances version 23.9.7 and below), rather than any vulnerabilities within the client software that is installed on end-user devices. As a best practice, partners should update their agents after a server upgrade, but it is not required to mitigate the vulnerability. Check the ConnectWise University for more information on reinstalling and upgrading an access agent.
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