CVE-2023-20867
Actively exploited. CVE-2023-20867 is listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-06-23) — exploitation has been observed in the wild, and US federal agencies are required to remediate it under BOD 22-01. Treat patching as urgent.
VMware Tools contains an authentication bypass vulnerability in the vgauth module. A fully compromised ESXi host can force VMware Tools to fail to authenticate host-to-guest operations, impacting the confidentiality and integrity of the guest virtual machine. An attacker must have root access over ESXi to exploit this vulnerability.
CSIRTS triage
- What
- An authentication bypass vulnerability in the vgauth module can impact the confidentiality and integrity of guest virtual machines.
- Who is affected
- Deployments of VMware Tools on fully compromised ESXi hosts.
- Urgency
- Remediation is urgent as the vulnerability is critical and actively exploited.
- Action
- Apply the latest security updates for VMware Tools.
AI-assisted analysis generated from the source advisory — verify against the original.
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Exploitation outlook
- Exploitation confirmedAlready exploited in the wild (CISA KEV) — the prediction phase is over. Patch now. Riskier than 96% of all EPSS-scored CVEs.
Advisory coverage (1)
- criticalexploitedCVE-2023-20867: VMware Tools Authentication Bypass Vulnerabilitycisa-kev · 2023-06-23
External references
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