NetScaler Times newsletter for Week 30 - 2025
This Week: Credential Protection, Observability Overview, & Fresh WAF Signatures
Hello Everyone,
It's Steven with another edition of the NetScaler Times, your weekly update to keep you up-to-date on all things NetScaler-related! Continuing to carry the torch, I’m here with this week’s roundup of events, firmware releases, support articles, and anything else I think is relevant - all in one convenient email, because email is the future!
1. NetScaler Credential Protection: A Comprehensive Technical Analysis
The deep dive into NetScaler Credential Protection has been published for a while but saw great traction when shared by the Citrix account on LinkedIn last week, so we're featuring it again for those who missed it! This technical paper demystifies how NetScaler protects credentials, from legacy static keys to the modern KEK system, AES-256-CBC encryption for service passwords, and PBKDF2 hashing for admin accounts. Essential reading for security teams and admins who need to understand credential protection and why root access is the real security boundary.
2. The latest firmware builds.
Below are the details for the various builds, which can help you plan for new releases in your environment. This support document provides additional information on the various release cycles.
NetScaler has multiple form factors to support different environments. It is built on a single operating system with a software-based architecture, so its behaviour will be the same regardless of whether it is used as hardware, a virtual machine, bare metal, or a container. Select one that works for your environment and needs.
Latest Build Versions:
Here is a timeline for the 14.1 and 13.1 builds to show where they are within their respective release lifecycle.
Here are all the firmware builds in a table:
Notes about Builds:
Which release should I use?
The release families are designed so that 14.1 has more elements changing with each update, hence the feature phase designation. Due to its maintenance phase, 13.1 will have fewer changes now.
An example of the move to 14.1 might be that you want to take advantage of removing the dependency of ALB in Azure with your NetScaler HA deployment. Read more here. This could save some $$$ (insert local currency).
Also, a recent customer request included plans to build a new Azure infrastructure. This was not expected to be a short-term deployment. Looking at the build cycles above, it would make sense to start looking at 14.1 for this. This would avoid re-architecting the solution next year when 13.1 moves to CVE-only support.
What about NetScaler SDX?
There are multiple NetScaler designations. VPX, MPX, SDX, BLX, and CPX all use the same firmware. The table above applies to all NetScaler types. It might not be the same download file, as appliances like the SDX do have other elements to update.
End Of Sale Appliances & End of Life Appliances
When purchasing replacements for EoS and EoL appliances, refer to the hardware replacements below. Your UHMC/CPL entitlement can be applied to the new hardware.
EoS Appliances
These appliances are End of Sale (unavailable to buy new now), they will live and run for 5 more years from 2024/2023. Just add 5 years to the EoS date to get the EOL.
EOL Appliances
A table shows the EOL appliance events for the last 18 months. April had a few appliances reach their end of life and must be replaced (to get support). The MPX/SDX 16000 is the replacement in most cases.
I pulled these summary tables from the official site here. Just open and expand the NetScaler section.
3. Latest NetScaler Security updates
Nothing new here (this week).
On June 25th, the following were issued:
1. NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway Security Bulletin for CVE-2025-6543
Full support doc: Link
On June 17th, the following were issued:
2. NetScaler ADC & Gateway Security Bulletin for CVE-2025-5349 & CVE-2025-5777.
Support ref: CTX693420. Status: Critical
Full support doc: Link
3. Citrix Workspace app for Windows Security Bulletin CVE-2025-4879.
Support ref: CTX694718. Status: High
Full support doc: Link
4. NetScaler Console and NetScaler SDX (SVM) Security Bulletin for CVE-2025-4365 –
Support ref: CTXCTX694729. Status: Medium
Full support doc: Link
NetScaler WAF Signatures Update v156 was updated on the 17th July.
New signature rules are available for vulnerabilities identified in CentOS Web Panel, Ivanti Cloud Services Application, and more. Download and configure these signature rules to protect from these security vulnerabilities:
Link to details.
4. Updates from around the web.
Some selected updates from around the web for the last 7 days..
Improve the observability of your applications with NetScaler
July 19, 2025: NetScaler's capabilities go beyond just application delivery. This overview explains how NetScaler's integrated observability capabilities collect and surface critical data across application performance, API security, and infrastructure health. From tracking latency and traffic patterns to identifying OWASP vulnerabilities and SSL issues, discover what metrics, events, logs, and traces (MELT) NetScaler provides. Plus, see how these insights can be accessed through your preferred tools like Prometheus, Grafana, or Splunk, making NetScaler a key component of your observability stack.
5. Feedback for this newsletter
If you have a topic that you would like to see featured, please drop me a note at Steven.Wright@cloud.com
You can get all the previous newsletters plus other articles here:
Have a great week!