CVE-2018-6983 in Workstation
Summary
by MITRE
VMware Workstation (15.x before 15.0.2 and 14.x before 14.1.5) and Fusion (11.x before 11.0.2 and 10.x before 10.1.5) contain an integer overflow vulnerability in the virtual network devices. This issue may allow a guest to execute code on the host.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 04/15/2020
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2018-6983 represents a critical integer overflow flaw affecting VMware Workstation and Fusion products across multiple versions. This vulnerability resides within the virtual network device implementations and demonstrates a classic software security weakness that can be exploited to gain unauthorized code execution privileges on the host system. The issue affects VMware Workstation versions 15.x before 15.0.2 and 14.x before 14.1.5, as well as VMware Fusion versions 11.x before 11.0.2 and 10.x before 10.1.5, indicating a widespread impact across the VMware virtualization ecosystem.
The technical flaw manifests as an integer overflow condition within the virtual network device handling code, where insufficient input validation and boundary checking allows malicious input to cause arithmetic overflow during network packet processing. This vulnerability specifically impacts the way virtual network devices manage packet sizes and buffer allocations, creating a scenario where an attacker-controlled integer value can exceed the maximum representable value for the data type, leading to unpredictable behavior. The overflow condition typically occurs when processing network packets with maliciously crafted sizes that cause the integer calculation to wrap around to a much smaller value, potentially resulting in buffer underflows or other memory corruption conditions.
From an operational perspective, this vulnerability creates a severe privilege escalation vector where a compromised guest operating system can execute arbitrary code on the host system with the same privileges as the host process. The attack scenario typically involves a guest user or process sending specially crafted network packets to the virtual network device, which then triggers the integer overflow condition. This allows for potential full system compromise, data exfiltration, and persistence mechanisms that could remain undetected for extended periods. The vulnerability's impact is particularly concerning in enterprise environments where virtualized workloads are common and where guest-to-host privilege escalation can lead to complete infrastructure compromise.
The vulnerability aligns with CWE-190, which specifically addresses integer overflow conditions, and represents a classic example of how virtualization platforms can introduce attack surfaces that extend beyond traditional operating system boundaries. From an adversarial perspective, this vulnerability maps to several ATT&CK techniques including privilege escalation through exploitation of software vulnerabilities and execution through valid operating system utilities. Organizations should implement immediate mitigations including applying the vendor-provided patches, implementing network segmentation to limit guest-to-host communication, and monitoring for suspicious network activity patterns that could indicate exploitation attempts. The vulnerability also underscores the importance of secure coding practices in virtualization environments and the need for comprehensive security testing of hypervisor components to prevent similar issues in future releases.