VMware ESXi, Workstation, and Fusion contain a heap out-of-bounds write vulnerability in the USB 2.0 controller (EHCI) where an attacker with local administrative privileges on a virtual machine may exploit this issue to execute code as the virtual machine’s VMX process running on the host.
On ESXi, the exploitation is contained within the VMX sandbox whereas, on Workstation and Fusion, this may lead to code execution on the machine where Workstation or Fusion is installed.
Products affected by the vulnerability include:
- VMware ESXi
- VMware Workstation Pro/Player (Workstation)
- VMware Fusion Pro/Fusion (Fusion)
- VMware Cloud Foundation
CVE-2022-31705 is the case number for the vulnerability, which has a CVSSv3 base score of 9.3.
To remediate the vulnerability, apply the updates for the various products:
- For ESXi, version 8.0 users can update to ESXi80a-20842819
- For ESXi, version 7.0 users can update to ESXi70U3si-20841705
- Fusion version 13.x is unaffected
- Fusion version 12.xcan update to 12.2.5
- For Workstation version 17.x is unaffected
- For Workstation version 16.x update to 16.2.5
For product suites that deploy response matrix components:
- For Cloud Foundsation (ESXi) version 4.x/3.x update to version KB90336