CVE-2007-4497 in Server
Summary
by MITRE
Unspecified vulnerability in EMC VMware Workstation before 5.5.5 Build 56455 and 6.x before 6.0.1 Build 55017, Player before 1.0.5 Build 56455 and Player 2 before 2.0.1 Build 55017, ACE before 1.0.3 Build 54075 and ACE 2 before 2.0.1 Build 55017, and Server before 1.0.4 Build 56528 allows users with login access to a guest operating system to cause a denial of service (guest outage and host process crash or hang) via unspecified vectors.
Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.
Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 07/07/2025
This vulnerability affects VMware Workstation and related products, creating a critical security risk where authenticated guest operating system users can trigger system instability. The flaw exists in versions prior to specific build numbers across multiple VMware products including Workstation 5.5.5, Workstation 6.0.1, Player 1.0.5, Player 2.0.1, ACE 1.0.3, ACE 2.0.1, and Server 1.0.4. The vulnerability manifests as a denial of service condition that can result in complete guest operating system outages and host system crashes or hangs. This represents a significant escalation of privilege issue where a user with minimal access can cause system-wide disruptions that compromise the integrity and availability of virtualized environments.
The technical nature of this vulnerability stems from insufficient input validation and error handling mechanisms within the VMware virtualization layer. When authenticated guest users execute specific operations or provide malformed inputs, the virtualization software fails to properly sanitize these inputs before processing them within the host system. This leads to memory corruption, resource exhaustion, or execution flow disruptions that ultimately cause the host process to crash or hang. The vulnerability operates at the hypervisor level where guest and host systems interact, making it particularly dangerous as it can be exploited without requiring elevated privileges or administrative access to the host system. This aligns with CWE-122, which describes buffer overflow vulnerabilities, and CWE-125, which covers out-of-bounds read conditions that can lead to system instability.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple service disruption to potentially compromise entire virtualized infrastructures. Organizations relying on VMware virtualization for their computing environments face significant risk as attackers could exploit this vulnerability to cause widespread outages across multiple virtual machines. The host process crashes or hangs can result in data loss, service interruptions, and require manual intervention to restore normal operations. In enterprise environments where virtualization is critical for business continuity, such vulnerabilities can lead to substantial financial losses and operational downtime. The vulnerability also represents a potential attack vector for advanced persistent threats where attackers might use this weakness as a foothold to establish more persistent access to the host system. This aligns with ATT&CK technique T1499, which covers network denial of service attacks, and T1068, which covers local privilege escalation through system resource manipulation.
Organizations should immediately implement mitigation strategies including applying the latest security patches provided by VMware to all affected versions of their virtualization software. System administrators should also implement network segmentation and access controls to limit guest user privileges and reduce the attack surface. Monitoring systems should be configured to detect unusual host process behavior or guest-to-host communication anomalies that might indicate exploitation attempts. Additionally, organizations should consider implementing virtual machine isolation techniques and regularly review access controls to ensure that guest users have only the minimum necessary privileges. The vulnerability demonstrates the critical importance of maintaining up-to-date virtualization software and implementing comprehensive security monitoring in virtualized environments to prevent exploitation of hypervisor-level vulnerabilities that can compromise entire infrastructure systems.