Kiteworks Urges Customers to Restart Systems After Shutdown Notice

Kiteworks instructed customers to temporarily shut down self-hosted managed file transfer (MFT) systems for about nine hours after receiving credible threat intelligence from federal authorities indicating a possible imminent attack; hosted systems were also taken down and subsequently restored with no confirmed breach. The vendor recommended running the latest version and investigators and commentators noted the action was an unusual but proactive use of threat intelligence, with speculation that a zero-day exploit against MFT platforms may have been the concern given prior high-profile MFT breaches such as MOVEit.