VMware vCloud Automation Center product updates address a critical remote privilege escalation vulnerability

a. VMware vCloud Automation Center remote privilege escalation

VMware vCloud Automation Center has a remote privilege escalation vulnerability. This issue may allow an authenticated vCAC user to obtain administrative access to vCenter Server.This issue is present in environments that use the “Connect (by) Using VMRC” function in vCAC to connect directly to vCenter Server. Environments that exclusively use vCloud Director (vCD) as a proxy to connect to vCenter Server are not affected.At this time the issue is remediated by removing the “Connect (by) Using VMRC” functionality for directly connecting to vCenter Server. Deploying the provided patch will remove this functionality.VMware is working on a secure solution that will restore this functionality. Customers may continue to use the “Connect (by) Using RDP” or “Connect (by) Using SSH” options for remote desktop management as they are not affected by this issue.

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifier CVE-2014-8373 to this issue.

Column 4 of the following table lists the action required to remediate the vulnerability in each release, if a solution is available.