Kiteworks' Decision to Ensure Customer Data Protection Through Customer-Wide Shutdown Navigates Credible Threat

Company worked with federal intelligence authorities to identify and remediate critical vulnerability, and restore all systems with no evidence of exploitation

SAN MATEO, CA, UNITED STATES, September 28, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Kiteworks confirms that all customer systems may be restored to normal operations following a precautionary shutdown recommendation issued September 25 in response to credible threat intelligence from federal intelligence authorities.

The threat window has passed without incident. Continuous monitoring throughout the period showed no abnormal activity, and the company has no indication that any Kiteworks or customer system was compromised. If customers have not already restarted, they can bring their Kiteworks system back online. All systems Kiteworks hosts on the behalf of customers have been brought back up and are operating normally.

Acting on intelligence about a potential imminent attack, Kiteworks advised customers to take their systems offline, shut down the environments it hosts on the behalf of customers, and mobilized its engineering and security teams alongside federal intelligence authorities. During the shutdown, this activity led to the discovery of a previously unknown critical vulnerability confined to a capability that is enabled for less than 1% of the customer base. Kiteworks developed and deployed a fix during the window, applied an additional protective layer across all environments, and has no indication the vulnerability was ever exploited. All other Kiteworks products were unaffected.

“Telling customers to take production systems offline is not a decision any vendor makes lightly, and we knew exactly what we were asking of them,” said Frank Balonis, Chief Information Security Officer, Kiteworks. “We made it anyway, because when the choice is between certainty and convenience, customer data is not something we are willing to gamble with. That decision is what made the rest possible. We would make the same call again tomorrow to protect our customers’ data.”

“Our customers gave up their weekend on our recommendation, at short notice and at difficult hours, and many of their teams worked through the night alongside ours,” said Jonathan Yaron, CEO and Chairman, Kiteworks. “We do not take that trust for granted, and we know it is earned rather than given. We are grateful to the federal authorities whose intelligence and partnership made the outcome possible, and to every customer and partner who acted without hesitation. The industry standard is to wait for proof of an attack. We would rather be proactive on credible warning than wait for certainty and be too late. That is the standard we intend to keep.”

Customers with questions should contact Kiteworks Technical Support or their customer success representative. Contact details below:

Email: support@kiteworks.com
Portal: https://community.kiteworks.com
Web: https://kiteworks.com/support
North America: +1-888-654-3778
International: +1-650-485-4350
Australia: +61 (0)2 7908 3819
Germany: +49 (0)711 9533-9989
Israel: +972 (0)2 374-0148
New Zealand: +64 (0)4 831-0761
Singapore: +65 3159 3269
UK: +44 (0)20 3608-6370


About Kiteworks
Kiteworks’ mission is to empower organizations to effectively manage risk in every send, share, receive, and use of private data. The Kiteworks platform provides customers with a secure data exchange that delivers data governance, compliance, and protection in a unified control plane. Kiteworks unifies, tracks, controls, and secures sensitive data moving within, into, and out of their organization, significantly improving risk management and ensuring regulatory compliance on all private data exchanges. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Kiteworks protects over 100 million end-users and thousands of global enterprises and government agencies.

David Schutzman
Kiteworks
+1 203-550-8551
david.schutzman@kiteworks.com
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