VMSA-2023-0013

• VMware Tools

An Authentication Bypass vulnerability in VMware Tools was responsibly reported to VMware. Updates are available to remediate this vulnerability in the affected VMware products.

VMware Tools contains an Authentication Bypass vulnerability in the vgauth module. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the Low severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 3.9.

A fully compromised ESXi host can force VMware Tools to fail to authenticate host-to-guest operations, impacting the confidentiality and integrity of the guest virtual machine.

To remediate CVE-2023-20867 update to the version listed in the ‘Fixed Version’ column of the ‘Response Matrix’ found below.

None.

Given the requirement that an attacker must have root access over ESXi to exploit the vulnerability described by CVE-2023-20867, please review ‘vSphere Security: Proactive and Continuous‘ which describes a holistic approach to security best practices.

None.

VMware would like to thank Mandiant for reporting this issue to us.

Fixed Version(s) and Release Notes:

VMware Tools 12.2.5
https://customerconnect.vmware.com/downloads/details?downloadGroup=VMTOOLS1225&productId=1259&rPId=106172

Mitre CVE Dictionary Links:

https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2023-20867

FIRST CVSSv3 Calculator:

CVE-2023-20867: https://www.first.org/cvss/calculator/3.1#CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

2023-06-13 VMSA-2023-0013

Initial security advisory.

E-mail: security@vmware.com

PGP key at:
https://kb.vmware.com/kb/1055

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