2. Relevant Releases

VMware ESXi 6.0 without patch ESXi600-201601102-SG

VMware ESXi 5.5 without patch ESXi550-201512102-SG

VMware ESXi 5.1 without patch ESXi510-201510102-SG

VMware ESXi 5.0 without patch ESXi500-201510102-SG



VMware Workstation prior to 11.1.2



VMware Player prior to 7.1.2



VMware Fusion prior to 7.1.2



3. Problem Description

Important Windows-based guest privilege escalation in VMware Tools



A kernel memory corruption vulnerability is present in the VMware Tools "Shared Folders" (HGFS) feature running on Microsoft Windows. Successful exploitation of this issue could lead to an escalation of privilege in the guest operating system.



VMware would like to thank Dmitry Janushkevich from the Secunia Research Team for reporting this issue to us.



Note: This vulnerability does not allow for privilege escalation from the guest operating system to the host. Host memory can not be manipulated from the guest operating system by exploiting this flaw.



The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifier CVE-2015-6933 to this issue.



Workarounds

Removing the "Shared Folders" (HGFS) feature from previously installed VMware Tools will remove the possibility of exploitation.



Column 4 of the following table lists the action required to remediate the vulnerability in each release, if a solution is available.

