Security

VMware fixed a flaw in vCenter Server discovered eight months ago

VMware addressed a high-severity privilege escalation flaw, tracked as CVE-2021-22048, in vCenter Server IWA mechanism.

VMware addressed a high-severity privilege escalation flaw, tracked as CVE-2021-22048 (CVSSv3 base score of 7.1.), in vCenter Server ‘s IWA (Integrated Windows Authentication) mechanism after eight months since its disclosure.

The vulnerability can be exploited by an attacker with non-administrative access to vulnerable vCenter Server deployments to elevate privileges to a higher privileged group.

“The vCenter Server contains a privilege escalation vulnerability in the IWA (Integrated Windows Authentication) authentication mechanism.” reads the advisory published by the company. “A malicious actor with non-administrative access to vCenter Server may exploit this issue to elevate privileges to a higher privileged group.”

The CVE-2021-22048 flaw affects multiple vCenter Server versions, including 6.5, 6.7, and 7.0. VMware addressed the flaw with the release of vCenter Server 7.0 Update 3fm which only addresses the vulnerability for servers running the latest release.

The company provided a workaround for this issue, suggesting switching to AD over LDAPS authentication OR Identity Provider Federation for AD FS (vSphere 7.0 only) from Integrated Windows Authentication (IWA).

The CVE-2021-22048 flaw was reported by CrowdStrike researchers Yaron Zinar and Sagi Sheinfeld on November 10th, 2021.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, privilege escalation)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

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