Improper AuthenticationWeakness · CWE-287

CVE-2024-22245

CRITICAL · 9.6 CVSS v3.1 Published 2024-02-20
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges

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
Arbitrary Authentication Relay and Session Hijack vulnerabilities in the deprecated VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in (EAP) could allow a malicious actor that could trick a target domain user with EAP installed in their web browser into requesting and relaying service tickets for arbitrary Active Directory Service Principal Names (SPNs).

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 · moderate confidence

VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in (EAP), now deprecated, contains authentication relay vulnerabilities allowing a remote attacker to trick authenticated users into requesting and relaying Kerberos service tickets for arbitrary Active Directory SPNs. This enables session hijacking and potential privilege escalation within the domain.

MitigationUninstall the deprecated VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in from all affected systems and browsers to eliminate the attack vector.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

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
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

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

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Check if VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in is installed
    On Windows, open Control Panel > Programs and Features and search for 'VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in' or 'VMware EAP'. Alternatively, run 'Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product | Select-Object Name,Version' in PowerShell to list installed software.
    Affected if The plug-in appears in the installed programs list
  2. Check browser extensions for EAP presence
    In Chrome, navigate to chrome://extensions and enable 'Developer mode' to view all extensions. In Firefox, go to about:addons. In Edge, navigate to edge://extensions. Look for any extension named 'VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in' or 'VMware EAP'.
    Affected if The VMware EAP browser extension is present and enabled
  3. Verify if VMware EAP service or driver is loaded
    On Windows, open Task Manager and check for processes named 'vmware-eap' or similar. Also run 'sc query' in command prompt to list services. On macOS, run 'ps aux | grep -i eap' in Terminal to check for running EAP processes.
    Affected if A VMware EAP process or service is running on the system
  4. Check Windows registry for EAP installation entries
    Open Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall or HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall. Search for registry keys containing 'VMware' and 'EAP' or 'Enhanced Authentication Plug-in'.
    Affected if Registry entries for VMware EAP are found

A system is affected if the VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in is installed, regardless of version, because the vulnerability exists in the deprecated plug-in itself and can enable Kerberos relay attacks.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

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.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Uninstall the deprecated VMware Enhanced Authentication Plug-in from all affected systems and browsers to eliminate the attack vector.

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation4.0 h
  • Implementation8.0 h
  • Testing4.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
18.0 hours of engineering $3,200
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Scan for this in your stack

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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-2024-22245 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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