SOC status:Duty analyst on shift

UK Cyber Defence
VulnerabilityAnalyzed

CVE-2025-22224

VMware ESXi and Workstation TOCTOU Race Condition Vulnerability

KEVHIGH 8.2EPSS 1.56%

Does this matter?

Known to be exploited in the wild (CISA KEV, CISA remediation deadline 25 March 2025). Treat as an emergency change: patch or isolate now, then hunt for prior compromise.

Description

VMware ESXi, and Workstation contain a TOCTOU (Time-of-Check Time-of-Use) vulnerability that leads to an out-of-bounds write. A malicious actor 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.

CVSS 3.1
8.2 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS
1.56% probability · 74th percentile
CISA KEV
Listed 4 March 2025 · due 25 March 2025
Weakness
CWE-367
Affected
vmware/esxi · vmware/cloud foundation · vmware/telco cloud infrastructure · vmware/telco cloud platform · vmware/workstation
Source
security@vmware.com

CISA notes

Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable. https://support.broadcom.com/web/ecx/support-content-notification/-/external/content/SecurityAdvisories/0/25390 ; https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-22224

Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.