CVE-2025-41244
Broadcom VMware Aria Operations and VMware Tools Privilege Defined with Unsafe Actions Vulnerability
Does this matter?
Known to be exploited in the wild (CISA KEV, CISA remediation deadline 20 November 2025). Treat as an emergency change: patch or isolate now, then hunt for prior compromise.
Description
VMware Aria Operations and VMware Tools contain a local privilege escalation vulnerability. A malicious local actor with non-administrative privileges having access to a VM with VMware Tools installed and managed by Aria Operations with SDMP enabled may exploit this vulnerability to escalate privileges to root on the same VM.
- CVSS 3.1
- 7.8 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- EPSS
- 8.63% probability · 95th percentile
- Public exploits
- None in Exploit-DB
- CISA KEV
- Listed 30 October 2025 · due 20 November 2025
- Weakness
- CWE-267
- Affected
- vmware/aria operations · vmware/cloud foundation · vmware/cloud foundation operations · vmware/open vm tools · vmware/telco cloud infrastructure · vmware/telco cloud platform · debian/debian linux · vmware/tools
- Source
- security@vmware.com
EPSS 8.6% since 30 October 2026; no change recorded yet. The dashed line is the ten per cent mark our analysts treat as “patch before the next change window”. Points are recorded when the score first appears and whenever it moves by a percentage point or more.
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/0/36149 ; https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-41244
References
- http://support.broadcom.com/group/ecx/support-content-view/-/support-content/Security%20Advisories/VMSA-2025-0015--VMware-Aria-Operations-and-VMware-Tools-updates-address-multiple-vulnerabilities--CVE-2025-41244-CVE-2025-41245--CVE-2025-41246-/36149Permissions Required
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/09/29/10Mailing List, Third Party Advisory
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/10/msg00000.htmlMailing List, Third Party Advisory
- https://blog.nviso.eu/2025/09/29/you-name-it-vmware-elevates-it-cve-2025-41244/Exploit, Third Party Advisory
- https://support.broadcom.com/web/ecx/support-content-notification/-/external/content/SecurityAdvisories/0/36149Vendor Advisory
- https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2025-41244US Government Resource
Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA, exploits from Exploit-DB. Refreshed daily. Download this record as JSON.