The Vulnerability Details
VMware fixed a high-severity privilege escalation flaw, tracked as CVE-2023-20854, that impacts Workstation. An attacker can exploit the vulnerability to delete arbitrary files on Workstation version 17.x for Windows OS.
Advisory by VMware
“An arbitrary file deletion vulnerability in VMware Workstation was privately reported to VMware. Updates are available to remediate this vulnerability in the affected VMware product,” reads the advisory published by the virtualization giant.
Reporter and CVSS Score
The issue was reported by Frederik Reiter of Cirosec GmbH and has been rated with a CVSSv3 base score of 7.8.
Call for Patches
Cirosec plans to release technical details soon, meantime, it urges customers to patch their systems. The security firm explained in a Tweet that the arbitrary file deletion vulnerability (CVE-2023-20854) allows local privilege escalation to SYSTEM.
Another Flaw in the Spotlight
Recently another flaw in VMware vRealize Log Insight, tracked as CVE-2022-31706 (CVSS base 9.8/10), made the headlines after Horizon3 security researchers released proof-of-concept (PoC) code. The PoC exploit code will trigger a series of flaws in vRealize Log to achieve remote code execution on vulnerable installs.