VMware ESXi and Workstation TOCTOU Race Condition
What to do
Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.
CISA deadline 2025-03-25 · passed 1 year 5 months ago · applies to US federal civilian agencies; used elsewhere as a reference SLA
What happened
VMware ESXi and Workstation contain a time-of-check time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition vulnerability that leads to an out-of-bounds write. Successful exploitation enables an attacker with local administrative privileges on a virtual machine to execute code as the virtual machine's VMX process running on the host.
Who is affected
VMware ESXi and Workstation. Affected version ranges are listed in the vendor advisory and the NVD entry linked under Sources.
Weakness class: CWE-367.
Timeline
- Added to CISA KEVExploitation in the wild confirmed by CISA
- CISA remediation deadlinepassed 1 year 5 months ago
Sources
- NVD entry for CVE-2025-22224 nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-22224
- CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog
- support.broadcom.com support.broadcom.com/web/ecx/support-content-notification/-/external/content/SecurityAdvisories/0/25390
- nvd.nist.gov nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-22224