CVE-2025-22224

VMware ESXi and Workstation: TOCTOU Race Condition

As of , CVE-2025-22224 in VMware ESXi and Workstation is on CISA's list of exploited vulnerabilities: CISA listed it on . Our patch-first group: Patch soon.

Exploited
Yes: CISA listed it on 4 March 2025
US federal deadline
25 March 202521 days after CISA listed it. US federal civilian agencies must fix it by then.
Used in ransomware campaigns
Not known to CISA
EPSS score
0.02Higher than 74% of the CVEs EPSS scores. EPSS estimates the chance of exploitation activity in the next 30 days.
Public exploit
None foundNeither Metasploit nor Exploit-DB lists one.
Fix
Vendor advice: support.broadcom.comLinks below, from CISA's entry.

What CISA says 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's required action

What the flaw is

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.

CISA's description

VMware ESXi, and Workstation contain a TOCTOU (Time-of-Check Time-of-Use) vulnerability that leads to an out-of-bounds write. A malicious actor with local administrative privileges on a virtual machine may exploit this issue to execute code as the virtual machine's VMX process running on the host.

The CVE record's description, from vmware

CVE published
4 March 2025
Assigned by
vmware
CVSS
9.3 Critical (CVSS 3.1, from the CNA)
CWE-367
Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition
CISA SSVC, exploitation
active
CISA SSVC, automatable
no
CISA SSVC, technical impact
total

Timeline

  1. The CVE record was published.
  2. CISA added it to its list of exploited vulnerabilities.
  3. The US federal deadline to fix it.

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