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MaxVernon
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

VMware Insecurity?

See the recent article from our friends at The Register:

Running risky software in a Virtual Machine does not automatically mean the host is secure.

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oreeh
Immortal
Immortal

FYI: this thread has been moved to the Security and Compliance forum.

Oliver Reeh

VMware Communities User Moderator

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Texiwill
Leadership
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Hello,

Core technologies pointed out a bug in vmhgfs that is several years old and NOT a vulnerability in VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3/ESX. Granted you can never be off your guard but that particular point is pretty much a red herring. There are currently No Known vulnerabilities for escaping the VM within VI3/ESX. I imagine their research is a result of the Black Hat conference several years ago in which this was first brought up.

VMware takes security seriously and ESX is still the most secure hypervisor out there.

This is yet another article rehashing very old data, thinking it is something new and getting it all wrong. That vulnerability was directed at VMware Workstation and NOT VMware Server or even VI3/ESX.


Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education. As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill
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oreeh
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I assume he refers to VMware Server (I at least moved the thread from the Server forum).

Anyway, since hgfs isn't available with Server it isn't a problem with Server as well.

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Texiwill
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Hello,

It is much easier to misconfigure the VMware Server/GSX/Workstation Host than it is for VI3/ESX to make the directory traversal attack work. All it requires is that the unpatched Windows host sharing a directory with a VM. However, I must stressed that this is an unpatched Host running windows and a pretty old version of windows at that.

The host whether workstation, GSX, or VMware Server should absolutely never share files via any network/pseudo network file sharing mechanism with a VM. This just opens up the 'possibility' of attack, whether it can be attacked or not. Actually, any file sharing between systems using SMB/CIFS is a weak spot and has nothing to do with running as a VM or a physical host. It is just the nature of file sharing to offer up possible attack points.


Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education. As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill
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