Vulnerability Monitor

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CVE-2020-3999


VMware ESXi (7.0 prior to ESXi70U1c-17325551), VMware Workstation (16.x prior to 16.0 and 15.x prior to 15.5.7), VMware Fusion (12.x prior to 12.0 and 11.x prior to 11.5.7) and VMware Cloud Foundation contain a denial of service vulnerability due to improper input validation in GuestInfo. A malicious actor with normal user privilege access to a virtual machine can crash the virtual machine's vmx process leading to a denial of service condition.


Security Impact Summary

This vulnerability carries a MEDIUM severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 6.5, requiring local system access to exploit with relatively low complexity without requiring user interaction requiring only low-level privileges . The vulnerability impacts and availability (service disruption) for affected systems. Impacting 4 products from vmware, from vmware, from vmware and 1 other, organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.

Historical Context

Reported in 2020, this vulnerability emerged during an era marked by increased sophistication in supply chain attacks, cloud infrastructure vulnerabilities, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) security challenges. Security practices during this period emphasized zero-trust architectures, container security, and API protection.


Published

2020-12-21T16:15:13.177

Last Modified

2025-08-08T10:32:53.753

Status

Analyzed

Source

[email protected]

Severity

CVSSv3.1: 6.5 (MEDIUM)

CVSSv2 Vector

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

  • Access Vector: LOCAL
  • Access Complexity: LOW
  • Authentication: NONE
  • Confidentiality Impact: NONE
  • Integrity Impact: NONE
  • Availability Impact: PARTIAL
Exploitability Score

3.9

Impact Score

2.9

Weaknesses
  • Type: Primary
    CWE-20

Affected Vendors & Products
Type Vendor Product Version/Range Vulnerable?
Application vmware workstation < 15.5.7 Yes
Operating System vmware esxi 7.0 Yes
Operating System vmware esxi 7.0 Yes
Operating System vmware esxi 7.0 Yes
Operating System vmware esxi 7.0 Yes
Operating System vmware esxi 7.0 Yes
Application vmware fusion < 11.5.7 Yes
Operating System apple mac_os_x - No

References

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.