Ethical Hacking News
In a significant escalation of the ongoing battle between defenders and malicious actors, hackers have begun utilizing an AI-powered tool called HexStrike-AI to exploit newly disclosed Citrix vulnerabilities. This new development underscores the ever-present risk posed by rapidly emerging threats in the cybersecurity realm, necessitating swift action and a comprehensive defense strategy.
HexStrike-AI is an AI-powered offensive security framework used by hackers to exploit newly disclosed vulnerabilities. The tool enables rapid weaponization of Citrix vulnerabilities, including CVE-2025-7775, CVE-2025-7776, and CVE-2025-8424. Nearly 8,000 endpoints remain vulnerable to CVE-2025-7775 as of September 2, 2025. HexStrike-AI is a legitimate red teaming tool created by cybersecurity researcher Muhammad Osama. The tool has already garnered attention from malicious actors who are discussing its capabilities on hacking forums. The use of HexStrike-AI could significantly reduce n-day flaw exploitation times, leaving system administrators with an already small patching window.
The security landscape has witnessed a significant shift with the emergence of AI-powered tools, and one such tool that has been making waves in the cybersecurity community is HexStrike-AI. This AI-driven offensive security framework has been utilized by hackers to rapidly exploit newly disclosed n-day flaws, including Citrix vulnerabilities.
According to CheckPoint Research, which observed significant chatter on the dark web around HexStrike-AI, these malicious actors have been actively discussing the tool's capabilities and ways to deploy it in real-world attacks. The primary focus of this attack vector has been the rapid weaponization of newly disclosed Citrix vulnerabilities, including CVE-2025-7775, CVE-2025-7776, and CVE-2025-8424.
The sheer volume of compromised NetScaler instances that have been exposed to the public raises serious concerns about the efficacy of patching windows. As of September 2, 2025, nearly 8,000 endpoints remain vulnerable to CVE-2025-7775, a decrease from 28,000 reported just a week prior. The reduced timeframe between vulnerability disclosure and exploitation is a stark reminder that in today's fast-paced threat environment, defenders face an increasingly shrinking window for swift action.
HexStrike-AI itself is a legitimate red teaming tool created by cybersecurity researcher Muhammad Osama. This AI-powered framework enables the integration of autonomous agents to run over 150 cybersecurity tools for automated penetration testing and vulnerability discovery. The tool operates with human-in-the-loop interaction through external LLMs via MCP, creating a continuous cycle of prompts, analysis, execution, and feedback.
The client features a retry logic and recovery handling mechanism designed to mitigate the effects of failures in any individual step on its complex operations. Instead, it automatically retries or adjusts its configuration until the operation completes successfully. Despite being open-source and available on GitHub for the last month, HexStrike-AI has already garnered significant attention from malicious actors who have started discussing its capabilities on hacking forums.
These hackers have reported using HexStrike-AI to achieve unauthenticated remote code execution through CVE-2025-7775 and then dropping webshells on compromised appliances. Some even offered compromised NetScaler instances for sale, further exacerbating the risks faced by organizations with vulnerable systems in place.
CheckPoint believes that it is likely that attackers used the new pentesting framework to automate their exploitation chain, scanning for vulnerable instances, crafting exploits, delivering payloads, and maintaining persistence. This level of automation could significantly reduce n-day flaw exploitation times from several days down to a few minutes, leaving system administrators with an already small patching window and even less time before attacks begin.
"The window between disclosure and mass exploitation shrinks dramatically," commented Check Point on a recently disclosed Citrix flaw. "CVE-2025-7775 is already being exploited in the wild, and with Hexstrike-AI, the volume of attacks will only increase in the coming days."
In light of this evolving threat landscape, it has become increasingly important for defenders to maintain a strong, holistic security stance. Check Point recommends focusing on early warning through threat intelligence, AI-driven defenses, and adaptive detection.
As the use of AI-powered tools like HexStrike-AI continues to rise, one thing becomes abundantly clear: the need for comprehensive cybersecurity solutions that can keep pace with this rapidly evolving landscape has never been more pressing.
Related Information:
https://www.ethicalhackingnews.com/articles/Hackers-Leverage-AI-Powered-HexStrike-AI-Tool-to-Swiftly-Exploit-Newly-Disclosed-Citrix-Flaws-ehn.shtml
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-use-new-hexstrike-ai-tool-to-rapidly-exploit-n-day-flaws/
Published: Wed Sep 3 13:22:33 2025 by llama3.2 3B Q4_K_M
