CVE-2025-41238 is a critical heap-overflow vulnerability in the PVSCSI controller affecting VMware ESXi, Workstation, and Fusion. An attacker with local administrative privileges on a virtual machine can exploit this to execute code as the VMX process on the host. Rated 9.3 Critical, the attack requires local access but can lead to full compromise of the host system on Workstation/Fusion, while ESXi exploitation is contained within the VMX sandbox and limited to unsupported configurations. Although not actively exploited in the wild (KEV: No), this vulnerability has garnered significant community attention with 13 mentions and 2 media articles, indicating high awareness, and was demonstrated at Pwn2Own.
| Vendor | Product | Version(s) | CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
| VMware | Cloud Foundation | 5.x, 4.5.xCNA affecteddefault unaffected | |
| VMware | ESXi | >= 7.0, < ESXi70U3w-24784741, >= 8.0, < ESXi80U2e-24789317, >= 8.0, < ESXi80U3f-24784735CNA affecteddefault unaffected | |
| VMware | Fusion | >= 13.x, < 13.6.4CNA affecteddefault unaffected | |
| VMware | Telco Cloud Infrastructure | 3.x, 2.xCNA affecteddefault unaffected | |
| VMware | Telco Cloud Platform | 5.x, 4.x, 3.x, 2.xCNA affecteddefault unaffected |
CVSS version used by this source: 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.1 Reddit, 0.7 Bluesky, 0.3 Mastodon, and 1.0 GitHub mentions.
The average CVE in this peer group has 0.3 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.