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Open Vm ToolsApplication · VMware

CVE-2009-1143

HIGH · 7.0 CVSS v3.1 Published 2022-11-23
Patch available
A vendor patch is available. No clean upgrade release — apply the published patch.
See remediation →
72/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
An issue was discovered in open-vm-tools 2009.03.18-154848. Local users can bypass intended access restrictions on mounting shares via a symlink attack that leverages a realpath race condition in mount.vmhgfs (aka hgfsmounter).

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-59

A file operation follows a symbolic link without checking where it actually points, so an attacker who can plant or swap a link redirects the operation to a file they should not be able to touch. It is a common local privilege-escalation primitive. Remediation is resolving and validating the real target path, and avoiding operations on attacker-controllable links.

General guidance for the link following (symlink) class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Open Vm ToolsApplication
Affected:= 2009.03.18-154848

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
High
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Patch available Apply the vendor patch
Vendor patch bugs.gentoo.org →
Recommended fix High confidence

Upgrade to the latest stable release of open-vm-tools (modern versions such as 12.x or 11.x series)

  1. 1. Identify the current open-vm-tools package version installed on the system using: dpkg -l open-vm-tools or rpm -q open-vm-tools
  2. 2. Remove the vulnerable open-vm-tools package: apt-get remove open-vm-tools (Debian/Ubuntu) or yum remove open-vm-tools (RHEL/CentOS)
  3. 3. Install the latest stable version of open-vm-tools from the official VMware repository or system package manager: apt-get install open-vm-tools (Debian/Ubuntu) or yum install open-vm-tools (RHEL/CentOS)
  4. 4. Verify the installed version matches a release after 2009.03.18-154848
  5. 5. Restart relevant services if needed: systemctl restart vmtoolsd (if applicable)
  6. 6. Test that shared folder (HGFS) functionality works correctly after the upgrade
Caveat Minor: Ensure compatibility with the VMware ESXi/Workstation version; some legacy mount.vmhgfs options may have changed syntax in modern versions

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2009-1143 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

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