VMSA-2018-0017.4

VMware Tools update addresses an out-of-bounds read vulnerability

VMware Security Advisory

VMware Security Advisory Advisory ID:

  VMSA-2018-0017.4

VMware Security Advisory Severity:

  Important

VMware Security Advisory Synopsis:

  VMware Tools update addresses an out-of-bounds read vulnerability

VMware Security Advisory Issue date:

  2018-07-12

VMware Security Advisory Updated on:

  2018-09-12

VMware Security Advisory CVE numbers:

  CVE-2018-6969

1. Summary

VMware Tools update addresses an out-of-bounds read vulnerability

2. Relevant Products

VMware Tools for Windows

3. Problem Description

VMware Tools Shared Folders out-of-bounds read vulnerability

VMware Tools for Windows contains an out-of-bounds read vulnerability in the Shared Folders feature. Successful exploitation of this issue may lead to information disclosure or may allow attackers to escalate their privileges on the guest VMs.

Note: In order to be able to exploit this issue, Shared Folders feature must be enabled. This issue only affects Windows VMs running on VMware Workstation or Fusion. Products that do not allow the Shared Folders feature to be enabled are not affected.

VMware would like to thank Anurudh for reporting this issue to us.

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifier CVE-2018-6969 to this issue.

Column 5 of the following table lists the action required to remediate the vulnerability in each release, if a solution is available.

VMware Product

Product Version

Running on

Severity

Replace with/ Apply Patch

Mitigation/ Workaround

VMware Product VMware Tools*

Product Version 10.x and prior

Running on Windows

Severity Important

Replace with/ Apply Patch 10.3.2

Mitigation/ Workaround Disable Shared Folders. See solution section below.

*VMware Tools 10.3.0 addressed the issue but it had to be discontinued due to a functional issue on ESXi 6.5, see KB57796. This functional issue with Tools 10.3.0 is not present on Workstation and Fusion.

4. Solution

Please review the patch/release notes for your product and version and verify the checksum of your downloaded file.

VMware Tools 10.3.2
Downloads and Documentation:

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?downloadGroup=VMTOOLS1032&productId=742

Disable Shared Folders feature on Workstation

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Workstation-Pro/14.0/com.vmware.ws.using.doc/GUID-CD13DB03-468E-4457-919F-C5989A67AB20.html

Disable Shared Folders feature on Fusion

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Fusion/10.0/com.vmware.fusion.using.doc/GUID-1F8FC440-376A-4EB6-8942-B4E61C656492.html

5. References

https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2018-6969

https://kb.vmware.com/kb/57796

6. Change log