VMware ESXi, Workstation, and Fusion updates address uninitialized stack memory usage

a. vmxnet3 uninitialized stack memory usage

VMware ESXi, Fusion and Workstation contain uninitialized stack memory usage in the vmxnet3 virtual network adapter. This issue may allow a guest to execute code on the host. The issue is present if vmxnet3 is enabled. Non vmxnet3 virtual adapters are not affected by this issue. VMware would like to thank the organizers of GeekPwn2018 and security researchers Zhangyanyu of Chaitin Tech and SmallerDragon for reporting this issue to us.

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the identifier CVE-2018-6981 to this issue.

Column 5 of the following table lists the action required to remediate the vulnerability in each release, if a solution is available.