ESXi 5.5 / 6.0 / 6.5 / Hypervisor-Assisted Guest Remediation for Speculative Execution (VMSA-2018-0004) (Spectre) (remote check)

medium Nessus Plugin ID 105782

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Synopsis

The remote VMware ESXi host is missing a security patch which enables hardware support for branch target mitigation.

Description

The remote VMware ESXi host is version 5.5, 6.0, or 6.5 and is missing a security patch. It is, therefore, missing security updates that add hypervisor-assisted guest remediation for a speculative execution vulnerability (CVE-2017-5715). These updates will allow guest operating systems to use hardware support for branch target mitigation and will require guest OS security updates as detailed in VMware Knowledge Base article 52085.

Note that hypervisor-specific remediation's for this vulnerability were released as part of VMSA-2018-0002.

Solution

Apply the appropriate patch as referenced in the vendor advisory.

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 105782

File Name: vmware_esxi_VMSA-2018-0004.nasl

Version: 1.8

Type: remote

Family: Misc.

Published: 1/12/2018

Updated: 9/2/2020

Supported Sensors: Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: High

Score: 7.6

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 4.7

Temporal Score: 4.1

Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:N/A:N

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2017-5715

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5.6

Temporal Score: 5.4

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:H/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:vmware:esxi

Required KB Items: Host/VMware/release, Host/VMware/version, Host/VMware/vsphere

Exploit Available: true

Exploit Ease: Exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 1/9/2018

Vulnerability Publication Date: 1/3/2018

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2017-5715

BID: 102376

IAVA: 2018-A-0020

VMSA: 2018-0004

Detections

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