ESXi: esxi-8.hw-virtual-nic

Information

The ESXi host must not enable virtual hardware management network interfaces. Hardware management controllers often present virtual or USB NICs to the ESXi host. These can be used as backdoors and should be deactivated both in the hardware configuration and in ESXi.

Solution

Get-VMHost -Name $ESXi | Get-AdvancedSetting Net.BMCNetworkEnable | Set-AdvancedSetting -Value 0

See Also

https://github.com/vmware/vcf-security-and-compliance-guidelines/raw/refs/heads/main/security-configuration-hardening-guide/vsphere/8.0/