CVE-2025-41244 | VMSA-2025-0015: VMware Aria Operations and VMware Tools updates address multiple vulnerabilities (CVE-2025-41244,CVE-2025-41245, CVE-2025-41246)

Exp

VMware Aria Operations and VMware Tools contain a local privilege escalation vulnerability. A malicious local actor with non-administrative privileges having access to a VM with VMware Tools installed and managed by Aria Operations with SDMP enabled may exploit this vulnerability to escalate privileges to root on the same VM.

Published: 2025-09-29 Last update: 2026-06-17 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Analyzed，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2025-41244 is rated Critical Active Threat (89.4/100): CVSS High severity, with high exploitation likelihood (EPSS 7.88%, 94th percentile). CISA KEV confirms active exploitation (added 2025-10-30) affecting Broadcom / VMware Aria Operations and VMware Tools. a weakness (CWE-267) Unauthenticated remote administrative access may be possible. The CISA remediation deadline has passed—treat as an emergency patch priority.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

CISA KEV Record for CVE-2025-41244

Name: Broadcom VMware Aria Operations and VMware Tools Privilege Defined with Unsafe Actions Vulnerability · CISA KEV detail

Exploit added: 2025-10-30

Action due: 2025-11-20

Required action: Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2025-41244

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
— nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2025-41244

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-25 7.61% 7.88% +0.27%
2 2026-06-15 0.53% 7.61% +7.08%
3 2026-05-25 — 0.53% —

Full EPSS history (29 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2025-41244

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.8 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 1.8 5.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2025-41244

OS Trackers for CVE-2025-41244

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2025-41244 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (open-vm-tools), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2025-41244
redhat high — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-41244
suse high CVE-2025-41244 severity important: SUSE including 72 source package names (13.2-9.1:libzypp-17.35.16-1.1, 2.0.4-5.5.381:libvmtools0-13.0.0-150300.64.1, …), 271 product×package rows across 66 product lines (Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/baremetal-os-container, Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/base-os-container, … (66 product lines)): Fixed 256, Known Not Affected 9, First Fixed 6. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-41244/
ubuntu medium CVE-2025-41244 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (open-vm-tools), 8 status rows across 8 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, plucky, trusty, upstream, xenial): released 5, not-affected 3. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2025-41244

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2025-41244

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
vmware aria_operations >= 8.0, < 8.18.5 cpe:2.3:a:vmware:aria_operations:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
vmware cloud_foundation >= 4.0, <= 5.2.2 cpe:2.3:a:vmware:cloud_foundation:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
vmware cloud_foundation_operations 9.0 cpe:2.3:a:vmware:cloud_foundation_operations:9.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
vmware open_vm_tools >= 11.2.0, < 12.5.4 cpe:2.3:a:vmware:open_vm_tools:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
vmware open_vm_tools 13.0.0 cpe:2.3:a:vmware:open_vm_tools:13.0.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
vmware telco_cloud_infrastructure >= 2.2, <= 3.0 cpe:2.3:a:vmware:telco_cloud_infrastructure:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
vmware telco_cloud_platform >= 4.0, < 5.0.1 cpe:2.3:a:vmware:telco_cloud_platform:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 11.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:11.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
vmware tools >= 12.5.0, < 12.5.4 cpe:2.3:a:vmware:tools:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
vmware tools >= 13.0.0.0, < 13.0.5.0 cpe:2.3:a:vmware:tools:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2025-41244

URL Tags
http://support.broadcom.com/group/ecx/support-content-view/-/support-content/Security%20Advisories/VMSA-2025-0015--VMware-Aria-Operations-and-VMware-Tools-updates-address-multiple-vulnerabilities--CVE-2025-41244-CVE-2025-41245--CVE-2025-41246-/36149 Permissions Required
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/09/29/10 Mailing List Third Party Advisory
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/10/msg00000.html Mailing List Third Party Advisory
https://blog.nviso.eu/2025/09/29/you-name-it-vmware-elevates-it-cve-2025-41244/ Exploit Third Party Advisory
https://support.broadcom.com/web/ecx/support-content-notification/-/external/content/SecurityAdvisories/0/36149 Vendor Advisory
https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2025-41244 US Government Resource
cvelogic Threat Intelligence