Vulnerability Spotlight: Denial-of-service in VMWare Fusion 11

Piotr Bania of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability.

Executive summary

VMware Fusion 11 contains an exploitable denial-of-service vulnerability. VMWare Fusion is an application for Mac operating systems that allows users to run other OSs in a virtual environment, such as Windows and Linux. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by supplying a malformed pixel shader inside of a VMware guest OS.

In accordance with our coordinated disclosure policy, Cisco Talos worked with VMware to ensure that these issues are resolved and that an update is available for affected customers.

Vulnerability details

VMware Fusion 11 shader functionality denial-of-service (TALOS-2019-0848/CVE-2019-5536)

An exploitable denial-of-service vulnerability exists in VMware Fusion 11.1.0 (13668589). A specially crafted pixel shader can cause a denial of service. An attacker can provide a specially crafted shader file to trigger this vulnerability. This vulnerability can be triggered from a VMware guest and the VMware host will be affected, leading to a VMware fusion process crash on the host.

Read the complete vulnerability advisory here for additional information.

Versions tested

Talos tested and confirmed that this vulnerability exists in VMware Workstation 11.1.0 (13668589) with Windows 10 x64 as operating as the guest VM and macOS Mojave as the host.

Coverage

The following SNORTⓇ rules will detect exploitation attempts. Note that additional rules may be released at a future date and current rules are subject to change pending additional vulnerability information. For the most current rule information, please refer to your Firepower Management Center or Snort.org.

**Snort Rules:**50502, 50503