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Uncontrolled Resource ConsumptionWeakness · CWE-400

CVE-2025-41227

MEDIUM · 5.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-05-20
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
57/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Zero-click

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
VMware ESXi, Workstation, and Fusion contain a denial-of-service vulnerability due to certain guest options. A malicious actor with non-administrative privileges within a guest operating system may be able to exploit this issue by exhausting memory of the host process leading to a denial-of-service condition.

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 ESXi, Workstation, and Fusion contain a denial-of-service vulnerability in certain guest operating system options. An unprivileged user within a guest VM can trigger excessive memory consumption in the host process, causing the host to become unresponsive or crash.

MitigationApply vendor patches when available. Restrict non-administrative user privileges within guest operating systems and limit which users can access vulnerable VM configurations.

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
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/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. Identify the VMware product
    Run 'vmware -v' or check the installed package name (ESXi via 'vmware -l', Workstation/Fusion via 'vmware -v')
    Affected if Product is ESXi, Workstation, or Fusion
  2. Check installed version against affected ranges
    Compare your installed version to the vulnerable version ranges published by VMware for this CVE
    Affected if Version falls within the vulnerable version ranges and no patch applied
  3. Verify guest VM access for unprivileged users
    Check if non-administrative users have access to VM configuration or console within guest operating systems
    Affected if Unprivileged users can access or modify VM settings within the guest
  4. Identify vulnerable guest OS configurations
    Review VM configuration files (.vmx) or guest OS settings for options known to trigger excessive memory consumption (consult VMware documentation for specific settings)
    Affected if Certain guest OS options that trigger the memory exhaustion condition are enabled

User is affected if running a vulnerable VMware product version where unprivileged users can access guest VMs with specific configurations that trigger excessive host memory consumption.

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

Apply vendor patches when available. Restrict non-administrative user privileges within guest operating systems and limit which users can access vulnerable VM configurations.

Have this fixed Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation3.0 h
  • Implementation6.0 h
  • Testing5.0 h
  • Review / QA3.0 h
17.0 hours of engineering $2,970
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An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $4,752.

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-2025-41227 in production — separate from our analysis above.

No notes yet

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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
  • 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
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data