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CVE-2003-1291

23
FAUCET Score

CVE-2003-1291 describes a critical privilege escalation vulnerability in VMware ESX Server 1.5.2 prior to Patch 4. This flaw allows local users to execute arbitrary code with root privileges by manipulating specific ESX Server environment variables. With a CVSS score of 7.2, it represents a high-severity local attack requiring low complexity, leading to complete compromise of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. While no public exploit code (Metasploit, Nuclei, ExploitDB) is readily available, the vulnerability has garnered significant community discussion, indicating awareness and potential for custom exploitation.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
1.5.2CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:vmware:esx:1.5.2:patch1:*:*:*:*:*:*
1.5.2CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:vmware:esx:1.5.2:patch2:*:*:*:*:*:*
1.5.2CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:o:vmware:esx:1.5.2:patch3:*:*:*:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 2.0

7.2HIGH

AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Confidentiality Impact
COMPLETE
Integrity Impact
COMPLETE
Availability Impact
COMPLETE
Access Vector
LOCAL
Access Complexity
LOW
Authentication
NONE
Exploitability Score
3.9
Impact Score
10.0
CvssVersion
2.0

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
0.34%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
26.2%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-27
Model: v2026.06.15
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.0034 is in the 24th percentile among its peer group of 3,237 CVEs.

Social Chatter

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.0 Reddit, 0.1 Bluesky, 0.0 Mastodon, and 0.5 GitHub mentions.

Media Mentions

No media coverage found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.1 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.

Remediation

Patch Available

Vendor Patches (1)

vmwarepatch availablevia nvd_reference
View patch

References

osvdb.org / 21585
Patch
vmware.com / download/esx/esx152-patch4.html
Patch
vmware.com / support/kb/enduser/std_adp.php