Open Vm ToolsApplication · VMware
CVE-2023-34059
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 · uneditedopen-vm-tools contains a file descriptor hijack vulnerability in the vmware-user-suid-wrapper. A malicious actor with non-root privileges may be able to hijack the /dev/uinput file descriptor allowing them to simulate user inputs.
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 analysisA detailed technical summary for this CVE is being prepared.
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
>= 11.0.0, <= 12.3.0
Debian LinuxOperating system
= 10.0= 11.0= 12.0CVSS 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 · scopedopen-vm-tools >= 12.3.1
- Upgrade open-vm-tools to version 12.3.1 or later to obtain the fix for the file descriptor hijack vulnerability
- For Debian systems, apply the Debian security updates once available for versions 10.0, 11.0, and 12.0
- After upgrading, verify the vmware-user-suid-wrapper binary permissions and ensure /dev/uinput cannot be hijacked by non-root users
- Restart the vmtoolsd service after upgrade: systemctl restart vmtoolsd
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2023-34059 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2023-34059 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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