Critical VMware Cloud Director Bug Could Let Hackers Takeover Entire Cloud Infrastructure

Cloud computing and virtualization technology firm VMWare on Thursday rolled out an update to resolve a critical security flaw in its Cloud Director product that could be weaponized to launch remote code execution attacks.

The issue, assigned the identifier CVE-2022-22966, has a CVSS score of 9.1 out of a maximum of 10. VMware credited security researcher Jari Jääskelä with reporting the flaw.

“An authenticated, high privileged malicious actor with network access to the VMware Cloud Director tenant or provider may be able to exploit a remote code execution vulnerability to gain access to the server,” VMware said in an advisory.

VMware Cloud Director, formerly known as vCloud Director, is used by many well-known cloud providers to operate and manage their cloud infrastructures and gain visibility into datacenters across sites and geographies.

The vulnerability could, in other words, end up allowing attackers to gain access to sensitive data and take over private clouds within an entire infrastructure.

Affected versions include 10.1.x, 10.2.x, and 10.3.x, with fixes available in versions 10.1.4.1, 10.2.2.3, and 10.3.3. The company has also published workarounds that can be followed when upgrading to a recommended version is not an option.

The patches arrive a day after exploits for another recently fixed critical flaw in VMware Workspace ONE Access were detected in the wild.

The flaw (CVE-2022-22954) relates to a remote code execution vulnerability that stems from server-side template injection in VMware Workspace ONE Access and Identity Manager.

With VMware products often becoming a lucrative target for threat actors, the update adds to the urgency for organizations to apply necessary mitigations to prevent potential threats.

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