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.
This vulnerability carries a HIGH severity rating with a CVSS v3.1 score of 7.8, requiring local system access to exploit 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 10 products from vmware, from vmware, from vmware and 7 others, organizations running these solutions should prioritize assessment and patching.
Reported in 2025, 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.
2025-09-29T17:15:30.843
2025-11-06T13:58:13.620
Analyzed
CVSSv3.1: 7.8 (HIGH)
| Type | Vendor | Product | Version/Range | Vulnerable? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Application | vmware | aria_operations | < 8.18.5 | Yes |
| Application | vmware | cloud_foundation | ≤ 5.2.2 | Yes |
| Application | vmware | cloud_foundation_operations | 9.0 | Yes |
| Application | vmware | open_vm_tools | < 12.5.4 | Yes |
| Application | vmware | open_vm_tools | 13.0.0 | Yes |
| Application | vmware | telco_cloud_infrastructure | ≤ 3.0 | Yes |
| Application | vmware | telco_cloud_platform | < 5.0.1 | Yes |
| Operating System | debian | debian_linux | 11.0 | Yes |
| Application | vmware | tools | < 12.5.4 | Yes |
| Application | vmware | tools | < 13.0.5.0 | Yes |
| Operating System | linux | linux_kernel | - | No |
| Operating System | microsoft | windows | - | No |
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.