Vulnerability Monitor

The vendors, products, and vulnerabilities you care about

CVE-2012-1516

The VMX process in VMware ESXi 3.5 through 4.1 and ESX 3.5 through 4.1 does not properly handle RPC commands, which allows guest OS users to cause a denial of service (memory overwrite and process crash) or possibly execute arbitrary code on the host OS via vectors involving data pointers.

Security Impact Summary

This vulnerability carries a CRITICAL severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 9.9, indicating it can be exploited remotely over the network with relatively low complexity without requiring user interaction requiring only low-level privileges . The vulnerability impacts confidentiality (data exposure), integrity (unauthorized modifications), and availability (service disruption) for affected systems. Impacting 2 products from vmware, from vmware organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.

Historical Context

Documented in 2012, this vulnerability occurred amid the cloud computing expansion era, where traditional network perimeter security models were being reevaluated. Organizations were transitioning from isolated infrastructure to interconnected systems, creating new attack surfaces that vulnerabilities like this could exploit.

Published

2012-05-04T16:55:01.420

Last Modified

2025-04-11T00:51:21.963

Status

Deferred

Source

[email protected]

Severity

CVSSv3.1: 9.9 (CRITICAL)

CVSSv2 Vector

AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:C/I:C/A:C

Access Vector: NETWORK
Access Complexity: LOW
Authentication: SINGLE
Confidentiality Impact: COMPLETE
Integrity Impact: COMPLETE
Availability Impact: COMPLETE

Exploitability Score

8.0

Impact Score

10.0

Weaknesses

Type: Primary
CWE-119

Affected Vendors & Products

Type	Vendor	Product	Version/Range	Vulnerable?
Operating System	vmware	esx	3.5	Yes
Operating System	vmware	esx	3.5	Yes
Operating System	vmware	esx	3.5	Yes
Operating System	vmware	esx	3.5	Yes
Operating System	vmware	esx	4.0	Yes
Operating System	vmware	esx	4.1	Yes
Operating System	vmware	esxi	3.5	Yes
Operating System	vmware	esxi	3.5	Yes
Operating System	vmware	esxi	4.0	Yes
Operating System	vmware	esxi	4.0	Yes
Operating System	vmware	esxi	4.0	Yes
Operating System	vmware	esxi	4.0	Yes
Operating System	vmware	esxi	4.0	Yes
Operating System	vmware	esxi	4.1	Yes

References

http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/53369 Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry ([email protected])
http://www.securitytracker.com/id?1027018 Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry ([email protected])
http://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2012-0009.html Vendor Advisory ([email protected])
https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/75373 VDB Entry ([email protected])
https://oval.cisecurity.org/repository/search/definition/oval%3Aorg.mitre.oval%3Adef%3A16810 Tool Signature ([email protected])
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/53369 Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
http://www.securitytracker.com/id?1027018 Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
http://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2012-0009.html Vendor Advisory (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/75373 VDB Entry (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)
https://oval.cisecurity.org/repository/search/definition/oval%3Aorg.mitre.oval%3Adef%3A16810 Tool Signature (af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108)

How SecUtils Interprets This CVE

SecUtils normalizes and enriches National Vulnerability Database (NVD) records by standardizing vendor and product identifiers, aggregating vulnerability metadata from both NVD and MITRE sources, and providing structured context for security teams. For vmware's affected products, we extract Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) data, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) classifications, CVSS severity metrics, and reference data to enable rapid vulnerability prioritization and asset correlation. This record contains no exploit code, proof-of-concept instructions, or attack methodologies—only defensive intelligence necessary for patch management, risk assessment, and security operations.