VMSA-2019-0011.1

Advisory ID	VMSA-2019-0011.1
Advisory Severity	Moderate
CVSSv3 Range	5.3
Synopsis	ESXi patches address partial denial of service vulnerability in hostd process (CVE-2019-5528)
Issue Date	2019-07-09
Updated On	2019-09-03
CVE(s)	CVE-2019-5528

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1. Impacted Products

ESXi

2. Introduction

A partial denial of service vulnerability in ESXi was reported to VMware Security Response. Patches and workarounds are currently available to remediate or workaround this vulnerability.

3. Partial denial of service vulnerability in ESXi hostd process (CVE-2019-5528)

Description:

Multiple failed login attempts to ESXi may cause the hostd service to become unresponsive resulting in a partial denial of service for management functionality. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the Moderate severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 5.3.

Known Attack Vectors:

A malicious actor with network access to an ESXi host could create a partial denial of service condition in management functionality. Successful exploitation of this issue may cause hostd to become unresponsive resulting in conditions such as an ESXi host disconnecting from vCenter.

Resolution:

To remediate this vulnerability, apply the patches listed in the 'Fixed Version' column of the 'Resolution Matrix' found below.

Workarounds:

Workarounds are available for this issue, follow the instructions in the documents linked in the 'Workarounds' section found below.

Additional Documentations:

None.

Acknowledgements:

None.

Notes:

If hostd becomes unresponsive due to CVE-2019-5528 the condition can be cleared by restarting the hostd service, it is not necessary to reboot the ESXi host.
Vulnerability scanners have been reported to trigger this vulnerability via multiple failed login attempts to ESXi.

Response Matrix:

Product	Version	Running On	CVE Identifier	CVSSV3	Severity	Fixed Version	Workarounds	Additional Documents
ESXi	6.7	Any	CVE-2019-5528	5.3	Moderate	ESXi670-201908201-UG	kb67920	None
ESXi	6.5	Any	CVE-2019-5528	5.3	Moderate	ESXi650-201907201-UG	kb67920	None
ESXi	6.0	Any	CVE-2019-5528	N/A	N/A	Unaffected	N/A	N/A