VMware ESXi is a bare-metal hypervisor that installs directly onto your physical server and provides you direct access to and control of underlying resources. VMware ESXi contains Return-Stack-Buffer-Underflow (CVE-2022-29901, CVE-2022-28693) and Branch Type Confusion (CVE-2022-23816, CVE-2022-23825) vulnerabilities due to the Intel and AMD processors it utilizes. There is a resolution to this issue, as such, there is no workaround discussed in this guide. VMware has evaluated the severity of these issues to be in the Moderate severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 5.6. VMware ESXi enables you to:
- Consolidate hardware for higher capacity utilization.
- Increase performance for a competitive edge.
- Streamline IT administration through centralized management.
- Reduce CapEx and OpEx.
- Minimize hardware resources needed to run the hypervisor, meaning greater efficiency.
Multiple side-channel vulnerabilities in Intel (CVE-2022-29901, CVE-2022-28693) and AMD (CVE-2022-23816, CVE-2022-23825) CPUs have been disclosed. Patches are available to mitigate these vulnerabilities in affected VMware products. Below are the impacted products.
- VMware ESXi
- VMware Cloud Foundation
What Exploit does this Vulnerability Present?
A malicious actor with administrative access to a virtual machine can take advantage of various side-channel CPU flaws that may leak information stored in physical memory about the hypervisor or other virtual machines that reside on the same ESXi host. Here are some related guides: How To Deploy Azure VMware Solution Private Cloud, Boot failure: How to fix EFI network timeout on VMware Workstation, and How to solve VMware workstation .lck error.
Remediation
To mitigate CVE-2022-29901, CVE-2022-28693, CVE-2022-23816, and CVE-2022-23825, apply the patches listed in the ‘Fixed Version’ column of the ‘Resolution Matrix’ found below. These patches do not introduce performance impact.
Response Matrix:
| Product | Version | Running On | CVE Identifier | CVSSv3 | Severity | Fixed Version | ||
| ESXi | 7.0 | Any | CVE-2022-29901, CVE-2022-28693, CVE-2022-23816, CVE-2022-23825 | 5.6 | Moderate | ESXi70U3sf-20036586 | ||
| ESXi | 6.7 | Any | CVE-2022-29901, CVE-2022-28693, CVE-2022-23816, CVE-2022-23825 | 5.6 | Moderate | ESXi670-202207401-SG | ||
| ESXi | 6.5 | Any | CVE-2022-29901, CVE-2022-28693, CVE-2022-23816, CVE-2022-23825 | 5.6 | Moderate | ESXi650-202207401-SG |
Impacted Product Suites that Deploy Response Matrix Components:
| Product | Version | Running On | CVE Identifier | CVSSv3 | Severity | Fixed Version | ||
| Cloud Foundation (ESXi) | 4.x | Any | CVE-2022-29901, CVE-2022-28693, CVE-2022-23816, CVE-2022-23825 | 5.6 | Moderate | KB88695 | ||
| Cloud Foundation (ESXi) | 3.x | Any | CVE-2022-29901, CVE-2022-28693, CVE-2022-23816, CVE-2022-23825 | 5.6 | Moderate | KB88927 |
I hope you found this blog post helpful. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comment session.