Progress Software has told ShareFile customers to immediately shut down the Windows servers running their Storage Zone Controllers, confirming it is responding to what it describes as a credible external security threat, as reported by The Hacker News.

An instruction to power off production servers is about as strong as vendor guidance gets. It means the company judges the risk of staying online to be worse than the disruption of going dark, which is not a call made lightly for an on-premises secure file-sharing system that customers rely on to move sensitive documents.

The name Progress carries extra weight here. The same company makes MOVEit, the managed file-transfer product whose 2023 vulnerability was exploited at scale to breach hundreds of organizations. File-transfer and file-sharing appliances are prized targets precisely because they sit on sensitive data by design, and attackers have learned to move quickly when one is exposed.

Affected customers should follow the guidance and shut down Storage Zone Controllers until Progress provides an all-clear or a fix, then review logs for any signs of access once systems are safe to inspect. When the vendor says pull the plug, the safest assumption is that someone is already trying the door.

Sources: The Hacker News, BleepingComputer.