Quantum Secular Labs / Blog / Advisories

CVE-2005-4459: VMware Ace: Buffer overflow

CVE-2005-4459 has a CVSS v2 base score of 10.0 (the maximum on that scale) and affects VMware Ace. Per its scoring, it can be exploited over the network, without authentication. The scored impact on confidentiality, integrity and availability is the highest available.

Vulnerability description

Heap-based buffer overflow in the NAT networking components vmnat.exe and vmnet-natd in VMWare Workstation 5.5, GSX Server 3.2, ACE 1.0.1, and Player 1.0 allows remote authenticated attackers, including guests, to execute arbitrary code via crafted (1) EPRT and (2) PORT FTP commands.

Severity breakdown

CVSS v2.0 10.0: AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Access vector: Network. Exploitable remotely over the network.
Access complexity: Low. No special conditions are required.
Authentication: None. No authentication is needed.
Confidentiality impact: Complete. Total information disclosure.
Integrity impact: Complete. Total loss of integrity.
Availability impact: Complete. Total shutdown of the component.

Underlying weakness

CWE-119: Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

The product performs operations on a memory buffer, but it reads from or writes to a memory location outside the buffer's intended boundary.

Affected products

VMware Ace: 1.0.1
VMware Gsx Server: 2.0; 2.0.1_build_2129; 2.5.1; 2.5.1_build_5336; 2.5.2; 3.0; 3.0_build_7592; 3.1; 3.2
VMware Player: 1.0.0
VMware Workstation: 3.2.1 patch1; 3.4; 4.0; 4.0.1; 4.0.2; 4.5.2; 4.5.2_build_8848 r4; 5.0.0_build_13124; 5.5