VMware ESXi 4.0 and 4.1 and ESX 4.0 and 4.1 allow remote attackers to cause a denial of service (socket exhaustion) via unspecified network traffic.

The remote VMware ESX / ESXi host is missing a security-related patch.
It is, therefore, affected by multiple vulnerabilities :

  - Multiple forgery vulnerabilities exist in the bundled     version of MIT Kerberos 5 (krb5). An attacker can     exploit these issues to impersonate a client, escalate     privileges, and disclose sensitive information.
    (CVE-2010-1323, CVE-2010-1324, CVE-2010-4020,     CVE-2010-4021)

  - A local arbitrary code execution vulnerability exists in     the Kernel in the do_anonymous_page() function due to     improper separation of the stack and the heap. A local     attacker can exploit this vulnerability to execute     arbitrary code. (CVE-2010-2240)

  - A denial of service vulnerability exists that allows a     remote attacker to exhaust available sockets, preventing     further connections. (CVE-2011-1785)

  - A denial of service vulnerability exists in the bundled     version of lsassd in Likewise Open. A remote attacker     can exploit this, via an Active Directory login attempt     that provides a username containing an invalid byte     sequence, to cause a daemon crash. (CVE-2011-1786)

a. ESX/ESXi Socket Exhaustion   By sending malicious network traffic to an ESXi or ESX host an  attacker could exhaust the available sockets which would prevent  further connections to the host. In the event a host becomes  inaccessible its virtual machines will continue to run and have  network connectivity but a reboot of the ESXi or ESX host may be  required in order to be able to connect to the host again.

 ESXi and ESX hosts may intermittently lose connectivity caused by  applications that do not correctly close sockets. If this occurs an  error message similar to the following may be written to the vpxa  log :
      socket() returns -1 (Cannot allocate memory)

  An error message similar to the following may be written to the   vmkernel logs :

     socreate(type=2, proto=17) failed with error 55

  VMware would like to thank Jimmy Scott at inet-solutions.be for   reporting this issue to us.

  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures Project (cve.mitre.org) has   assigned the name CVE-2011-1785 to this issue.

b. Likewise package update    Updates to the vmware-esx-likewise-openldap and   vmware-esx-likewise-krb5 packages address several security issues.

  One of the vulnerabilities is specific to Likewise while the other   vulnerabilities are present in the MIT version of krb5.
  An incorrect assert() call in Likewise may lead to a termination   of the Likewise-open lsassd service if a username with an illegal   byte sequence is entered for user authentication when logging in to   the Active Directory domain of the ESXi/ESX host. This would lead to   a denial of service.
  The MIT-krb5 vulnerabilities are detailed in MITKRB5-SA-2010-007.

  The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has   assigned the names CVE-2011-1786 (Likewise-only issue),   CVE-2010-1324, CVE-2010-1323, CVE-2010-4020, CVE-2010-4021 to these   issues.

c. ESX third-party update for Service Console kernel    The Service Console kernel is updated to include a fix for a   security issue.
    The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has   assigned the name CVE-2010-2240 to this issue.

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
89676	VMware ESX / ESXi Multiple Vulnerabilities (VMSA-2011-0007) (remote check)	Nessus	Misc.	high
53592	VMSA-2011-0007 : VMware ESXi and ESX Denial of Service and third-party updates for Likewise components and ESX Service Console	Nessus	VMware ESX Local Security Checks	medium

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2011-1785

high

Tenable Plugins

high

medium