VMware ESXi VMX Process out-of-bounds write

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability identified as critical has been detected in VMware ESXi, Workstation, Cloud Foundation, Telco Cloud Platform and Telco Cloud Infrastructure. Affected is an unknown function of the component VMX Process. The manipulation leads to out-of-bounds write. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2025-22224. Local access is required to approach this attack. Moreover, an exploit is present. You should upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in VMware ESXi, Workstation, Cloud Foundation, Telco Cloud Platform and Telco Cloud Infrastructure and classified as critical. This issue affects some unknown functionality of the component VMX Process. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a out-of-bounds write vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-787. The product writes data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

VMware ESXi, and Workstation contain a TOCTOU (Time-of-Check Time-of-Use) vulnerability that leads to an out-of-bounds write. A malicious actor with local administrative privileges on a virtual machine may exploit this issue to execute code as the virtual machine's VMX process running on the host.

The advisory is shared at support.broadcom.com. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2025-22224 since 01/02/2025. The exploitation is known to be easy. An attack has to be approached locally. Technical details are unknown but an exploit is available. The price for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 10/22/2025).

It is declared as attacked. The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 226452 (VMware ESXi 7.0 / 8.0 Out-of-bounds Write (CVE-2025-22224)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment. The CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog lists this issue since 03/04/2025 with a due date of 03/25/2025:

Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.

Upgrading eliminates this vulnerability.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at Zero-Day.cz (971) and Tenable (226452). If you want to get the best quality for vulnerability data then you always have to consider VulDB.

Productinfo

Type

• Virtualization Software

Vendor

• VMware

Name

• Cloud Foundation
• ESXi
• Telco Cloud Infrastructure
• Telco Cloud Platform
• Workstation

License

• commercial

Website

• Vendor: https://www.vmware.com/

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If you want to get the best quality for vulnerability data then you always have to consider VulDB.

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