CVE-2023-20867: VMware Tools Authentication Bypass Vulnerability

CISA Known Exploited Vulnerability (KEV)

Description

VMware Tools contains an authentication bypass vulnerability in the vgauth module. 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. An attacker must have root access over ESXi to exploit this vulnerability.

Required action (CISA)

Apply updates per vendor instructions.

Notes

https://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2023-0013.html; https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-20867

Weakness behind it

CISA records this vulnerability as an instance of CWE-287. From there the chain continues into CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques, all inside this corpus.

References

• NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-20867
• KEV catalog: https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog