• Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
MUST READ

Stellantis probes data breach linked to third-party provider

 | 

FBI alerts public to spoofed IC3 site used in fraud schemes

 | 

EU agency ENISA says ransomware attack behind airport disruptions

 | 

Researchers expose MalTerminal, an LLM-enabled malware pioneer

 | 

Beware: GitHub repos distributing Atomic Infostealer on macOS

 | 

ESET uncovers Gamaredon–Turla collaboration in Ukraine cyberattacks

 | 

SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 63

 | 

Security Affairs newsletter Round 542 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION

 | 

A cyberattack on Collins Aerospace disrupted operations at major European airports

 | 

Fortra addressed a maximum severity flaw in GoAnywhere MFT software

 | 

UK police arrested two teen Scattered Spider members linked to the 2024 attack on Transport for London

 | 

ShadowLeak: Radware Uncovers Zero-Click Attack on ChatGPT

 | 

SonicWall warns customers to reset credentials after MySonicWall backups were exposed

 | 

CVE-2025-10585 is the sixth actively exploited Chrome zero-day patched by Google in 2025

 | 

Jaguar Land Rover will extend its production halt into a third week following a cyberattack

 | 

China-linked APT41 targets government, think tanks, and academics tied to US-China trade and policy

 | 

Microsoft and Cloudflare teamed up to dismantle the RaccoonO365 phishing service

 | 

DoJ resentenced former BreachForums admin to three years in prison

 | 

Apple backports fix for actively exploited CVE-2025-43300

 | 

New supply chain attack hits npm registry, compromising 40+ packages

 | 
  • Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
  • Home
  • Breaking News
  • Hacking
  • Malware
  • Experts uncovered novel Malware persistence within VMware ESXi Hypervisors

Experts uncovered novel Malware persistence within VMware ESXi Hypervisors

Pierluigi Paganini September 30, 2022

Researchers from Mandiant have discovered a novel malware persistence technique within VMware ESXi Hypervisors.

Mandiant detailed a novel technique used by malware authors to achieve administrative access within VMware ESXi Hypervisors and take over vCenter servers and virtual machines for Windows and Linux to perform the following actions:

  1. Send commands to the hypervisor that will be routed to the guest VM for execution
  2. Transfer files between the ESXi hypervisor and guest machines running beneath it
  3. Tamper with logging services on the hypervisor
  4. Execute arbitrary commands from one guest VM to another guest VM running on the same hypervisor.

The highly targeted and evasive nature of this attack leads the experts into believing that the attack was carried out for cyberespionage purposes by a China-linked actor tracked as UNC3886. 

In the attack investigated by Mandiant, threat actors relied on malicious vSphere Installation Bundles (“VIBs”) to install two backdoors on the ESXi hypervisors, tracked as VIRTUALPITA and VIRTUALPIE. VIBs are collections of files that are designed to manage virtual systems, they can be used to create startup tasks, custom firewall rules, or deploy custom binaries upon the restart of an ESXi machine.

“This malware ecosystem was initially detected during an intrusion investigation when Mandiant identified attacker commands sourced from the legitimate VMware Tools process, vmtoolsd.exe, on a Windows virtual machine hosted on a VMware ESXi hypervisor.” reads the report published by Mandiant. “Mandiant analyzed the boot profile for the ESXi hypervisors and identified a never-before-seen technique in which a threat actor leveraged malicious vSphere Installation Bundles (“VIBs”) to install multiple backdoors on the ESXi hypervisors. We call these backdoors VIRTUALPITA and VIRTUALPIE.”

VMware ESXi Hypervisors

The experts pointed out that the attacker needs admin-level privileges to the ESXi hypervisor before they can deploy malware. The experts are not aware of zero-day exploits being used to gain initial access or deploy the malicious VIBs.

VIBs are composed of:

  • An XML descriptor file
  • A “VIB payload” (.vgz archive)
  • A signature file – A digital signature used to verify the host acceptance level of a VIB

The XML Descriptor File is a config which contains references to the following:

  • The payload to be installed
  • VIB metadata, such as the name and install date
  • The signature file that belongs to the VIB

Mandiant researchers discovered that attackers were able to modify the acceptance level in the XML descriptor of the VBI from ‘community’ to ‘partner’ to make it appear to have been created by a trusted entity.

“While the acceptance-level field was modified in the Descriptor XML by the attacker, the ESXi system still did not allow for a falsified VIB file to be installed below the minimal set acceptance level. To circumvent this, the attacker abused the –force flag to install malicious CommunitySupported VIBs.” continues the report.

Attackers used this technique to install the VirtualPita and VirtualPie backdoor on the compromised ESXi machine

VIRTUALPITA is a 64-bit passive backdoor that creates a listener on a hardcoded port number on a VMware ESXi server, the malware supports arbitrary command execution. VIRTUALPIE is a lightweight Python backdoor that supports arbitrary command line execution, file transfer capabilities, and reverse shell capabilities. 

Researchers also discovered a unique malware sample, tracked as VirtualGate, which includes a dropper and a payload. The malicious code was hosted by the infected hypervisors.

“While we noted the technique used by UNC3886 requires a deeper level of understanding of the ESXi operating system and VMWare’s virtualization platform, we anticipate a variety of other threat actors will use the information outlined in this research to begin building out similar capabilities.” concludes the report. “Mandiant recommends organizations using ESXi and the VMware infrastructure suite follow the hardening steps outlined in this blog post to minimize the attack surface of ESXi hosts.”

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook

[adrotate banner=”9″][adrotate banner=”12″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, VMware ESXi Hypervisors)

[adrotate banner=”5″]

[adrotate banner=”13″]


facebook linkedin twitter

Hacking hacking news information security news IT Information Security malware Pierluigi Paganini Security Affairs Security News VMware VMware ESXi Hypervisors

you might also like

Pierluigi Paganini September 22, 2025
Stellantis probes data breach linked to third-party provider
Read more
Pierluigi Paganini September 22, 2025
FBI alerts public to spoofed IC3 site used in fraud schemes
Read more

leave a comment

newsletter

Subscribe to my email list and stay
up-to-date!

    recent articles

    Stellantis probes data breach linked to third-party provider

    Data Breach / September 22, 2025

    FBI alerts public to spoofed IC3 site used in fraud schemes

    Cyber Crime / September 22, 2025

    EU agency ENISA says ransomware attack behind airport disruptions

    Security / September 22, 2025

    Researchers expose MalTerminal, an LLM-enabled malware pioneer

    Malware / September 22, 2025

    Beware: GitHub repos distributing Atomic Infostealer on macOS

    Malware / September 22, 2025

    To contact me write an email to:

    Pierluigi Paganini :
    pierluigi.paganini@securityaffairs.co

    LEARN MORE

    QUICK LINKS

    • Home
    • Cyber Crime
    • Cyber warfare
    • APT
    • Data Breach
    • Deep Web
    • Digital ID
    • Hacking
    • Hacktivism
    • Intelligence
    • Internet of Things
    • Laws and regulations
    • Malware
    • Mobile
    • Reports
    • Security
    • Social Networks
    • Terrorism
    • ICS-SCADA
    • POLICIES
    • Contact me

    Copyright@securityaffairs 2024

    We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
    Cookie SettingsAccept All
    Manage consent

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities...
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT