Over the weekend, Citrix informed users of its remote access software GoToMyPC that their passwords have been reset due to what the company calls a “very sophisticated password attack.”
The company’s security team has decided that resetting the passwords of all customer accounts is the best way to address the issue. Users have been advised to set strong, unique passwords and enable two-step verification on their accounts to prevent unauthorized access.
GoToMyPC customers can reset their passwords using the regular “Forgot Password” feature, or by calling GoToMyPC support if they don’t have access to their email account.
The attackers leveraged credentials leaked recently from major websites to access GoToMyPC accounts. These types of attacks are often automated and they can be highly efficient considering that many people set the same password for multiple online services.
“Citrix takes the safety and security of its customers very seriously, and is aware of the password attack on GoToMyPC. Once Citrix learned about the attack, it took immediate action to protect customers. Citrix can confirm the recent incident was a password re-use attack, where attackers used usernames and passwords leaked from other websites to access the accounts of GoToMyPC users,” John Bennett, Product Line Director at Citrix, told SecurityWeek.
“At this time, the response includes a mandatory password reset for all GoToMyPC users. Citrix encourages customers to visit the GoToMyPC status page to learn about enabling two-step verification, and to use strong passwords in order to keep accounts as safe as possible. Further, there is no indication of compromise to any other Citrix product line,” Bennett added.
Password reuse attacks are usually not very sophisticated, but they have been successful against several popular services over the past few weeks, including GitHub, Facebook, Netflix, Reddit, TeamViewer and Twitter.
In TeamViewer’s case, some users claimed that they had unique passwords for the software and they still got hacked, but the vendor insisted that its own systems had not been breached.
Malicious actors have been using credentials leaked recently from companies such as LinkedIn, Myspace, Tumblr and VK. Despite the fact that the breaches occurred in 2011-2013, there are hundreds of millions of compromised credentials and many of them are apparently still valid.
*Updated with statement from Citrix
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Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.
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