VMware Flaws Under Attack – Patch Now, CISA Warns!

VMware Flaws Under Attack—Federal Agencies and Enterprises Must Act Now

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has raised urgent security alerts about three VMware vulnerabilities, including CVE-2025-22224, CVE-2025-22225, and CVE-2025-22226, that permit an attacker to escalate privileges, execute remote code on hypervisors, or leak memory. Security experts now warn of incoming massive cyberwarfare unless striking measures are taken, as this kind of virtualization software is being heavily used by enterprise and even government IT infrastructures around the globe.

What Makes These Flaws So Bad?

Hypervisor Takeover via TOCTOU Flaw (CVE-2025-22224) – CVSS 9.3

An attacker with administrative access to a VM can exploit a heap overflow in the VMX process and gain full control of the hypervisor and pivot within virtualized environments. Attackers can take control of multiple VMs and compromise entire data centers and cloud platforms.

Sandbox escape through arbitrary write: An attacker who has authenticated can write arbitrary data directly onto ESXi hosts, i.e., break out of the VM sandbox environment. Modifying kernel memory would allow attackers to escalate privileges to install malware, tamper with data, or disrupt operations.

The multi-tenant cloud environment is most at risk: a single compromised VM can put the entire cluster at risk. Hypervisor memory leak: Out-of-bounds reading on the host guest file system (HGFS) would allow attackers to infer from the hypervisor memory, e.g., keys, creds, and tokens. This doesn’t give immediate admin access but provides valuable reconnaissance that can be used in a broader attack.

Stolen credentials allow attackers to traverse systems laterally and eventually compromise more systems and services.

CISA’s Response—Patch Now!

CISA added the vulnerabilities to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalogue since confirmed exploitation. Federal agencies must patch under BOD 22-01, and enterprises should as well.

VMware patches:

ESXi 8.0/7.0: update to ESXi80U3d-24585383 and ESXi70U3s-24585291. Workstation 17: x: upgrade to 17.6.3 (CVE-2025-22224 and CVE-2025-22226 fixed) Fusion 13.x: update to 13.6.3 (CVE-2025-22226 fixed) For VMware Cloud Foundation and Telco Cloud Platform: The patch may be applied intermittently or upgraded to a fixed ESXi version.

Mitigation Strategies

When these are being exploited, organizations want to act fast. To do so, CISA and VMware recommend:

1. Patch as soon as you can: No workarounds exist for these, so patch your VMware products as soon as you can.

2. Monitor virtual machine activity: Look for privilege escalation, unusual memory access, and changes to the hypervisor.

3. Follow CISA’s BOD 22-01: Make sure your remediation fits in CISA’s KEV catalog deadlines so you can get ahead of any attacks.

4. Lock down access: Use role-based access control, MFA, and limit admin access to reduce risk.

Delaying Patches Could Lead to Catastrophic Attacks

The vCenter Server 2024 is shedding some light on the common myths and truths about VMware. Threats are hiding in complex organizations that run complex operations across warren-like networks, stabbing themselves into the VM’s enforcement boundaries.

Leaving the VMware systems unpatched is a risk as these solutions are used in finance, healthcare, energy, and government. Security researchers are telling us that the vulnerabilities are being exploited by ransomware groups and nation-state actors, licking the bowl clean for organizations that didn’t patch. Last call to patch—do or be compromised.

Act Now or Risk Breach

The CISA advisory is clear—patch it, keep an eye on it, and stay protected from future questions. Otherwise, the space is open for a data breach—shamefully exposing corporate and government data, crippling critical infrastructure with ransomware attacks, and nation-state cyber espionage on organizations that care.

Scary, huh? Now go fix it all and fix it right. Just about cybersecurity, adrenaline is running through those chambers where stopping one moment away from action can save you from the bullet; otherwise, you’ll be the reason for your own pain. If the IT is still behind the curve, they need to patch it, monitor it, and be aware.

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