Detections
Analytics
VMSA-2009-0007 : VMware Hosted products and ESX and ESXi patches resolve security issues
high Nessus Plugin ID 40392
Synopsis
The remote VMware ESX host is missing a security-related patch.Description
a. VMware Descheduled Time Accounting driver vulnerability may cause a denial of service in Windows based virtual machines.The VMware Descheduled Time Accounting Service is an optional, experimental service that provides improved guest operating system accounting.
This patch fixes a denial of service vulnerability that could be triggered in a virtual machine by an unprivileged, locally logged-on user in the virtual machine.
Virtual machines are affected under the following conditions :
- The virtual machine is running a Windows operating system.
- The VMware Descheduled Time Accounting driver is installed in the virtual machine. Note that this is an optional (non- default) part of the VMware Tools installation.
- The VMware Descheduled Time Accounting Service is not running in the virtual machine
The VMware Descheduled Time Accounting Service is no longer provided in newer versions of VMware Tools, starting with the versions released in Fusion 2.0.2 and ESX 4.0.
However, virtual machines migrated from vulnerable releases will still be vulnerable if the three conditions listed above are met, until their tools are upgraded.
Steps needed to remediate this vulnerability :
Guest systems on VMware Workstation, Player, ACE, Server, Fusion
- Install the new version of Workstation, Player, ACE, Server, Fusion (see below for version information)
- Upgrade tools in the virtual machine (virtual machine users will be prompted to upgrade).
Guest systems on ESX 3.5, ESXi 3.5, ESX 3.0.2, ESX 3.0.3
- Install the relevant patches (see below for patch identifiers)
- Manually upgrade tools in the virtual machine (virtual machine users will not be prompted to upgrade). Note the VI Client will not show the VMware tools is out of date in the summary tab.
Please see http://tinyurl.com/27mpjo page 80 for details.
Guests systems on ESX 4.0 and ESXi 4.0 that have been migrated from ESX 3.5, ESXi 3.5, and ESX 3.0.x
- Install/upgrade the new tools in the virtual machine (virtual machine users will be prompted to upgrade).
If the Descheduled Time Accounting driver was installed, the tools upgrade will result in an updated driver for Workstation, Player, ACE, Server, ESX 3.0.2, ESX 3.0.3, ESX 3.5, ESXi 3.5. For Fusion, ESX 4.0, and ESXi 4.0 the tools upgrade will result in the removal of the driver.
VMware would like to thank Nikita Tarakanov for reporting this issue to us.
The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CVE-2009-1805 to this issue.
b. Updated libpng package for the ESX 2.5.5 Service Console
The libpng packages contain a library of functions for creating and manipulating PNG (Portable Network Graphics) image format files.
A flaw was discovered in libpng that could result in libpng trying to free() random memory if certain, unlikely error conditions occurred. If a carefully-crafted PNG file was loaded by an application linked against libpng, it could cause the application to crash or, potentially, execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running the application.
A flaw was discovered in the way libpng handled PNG images containing 'unknown' chunks. If an application linked against libpng attempted to process a malformed, unknown chunk in a malicious PNG image, it could cause the application to crash.
The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the names CVE-2009-0040 and CVE-2008-1382 to these issues.
The VMware version number of libpng after applying the update is libpng-1.0.14-12.i386.rpm.
Solution
Apply the missing patch.See Also
http://lists.vmware.com/pipermail/security-announce/2009/000057.html
Plugin Details
Severity: High
ID: 40392
File Name: vmware_VMSA-2009-0007.nasl
Version: 1.23
Type: local
Family: VMware ESX Local Security Checks
Published: 7/27/2009
Updated: 1/6/2021
Supported Sensors: Nessus
Risk Information
VPR
Risk Factor: Medium
Score: 6.7
CVSS v2
Risk Factor: High
Base Score: 7.5
Temporal Score: 5.5
Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
Vulnerability Information
CPE: cpe:/o:vmware:esx:2.5.5, cpe:/o:vmware:esx:3.0.2, cpe:/o:vmware:esx:3.0.3
Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/VMware/release, Host/VMware/version
Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available
Patch Publication Date: 5/28/2009