Threats / VMware / CVE-2024-38813
CVE-2024-38813
· EUVD no mirror located
· GCVE no mirror located
Verified 2026-09-19
VMware vCenter Server vulnerability
VMware vCenter Server contains an improper privilege-drop check vulnerability allowing network-based attackers to escalate privileges to root via specially crafted packets.
Verdict
Today item — known-exploited.
A network-accessible privilege escalation flaw in vCenter Server permits unauthenticated or low-privileged attackers to gain root-level control. Active exploitation in the wild increases operational risk for virtualization infrastructure.
CISA KEV Yes · 2024-11-205EPSS 0.17355 (verify live)6CVSS 7.53CISA SSVC Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Impact: total4
01
Is it exploitable?
— the evidence, ranked above the scoreReported exploitation
6 independent public reports of in-the-wild exploitation are cataloged.Distinct reporting sources (vendor, incident response, government); open them for the underlying claims.
Exploited in the wild
Listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2024-11-20).
Probability (EPSS)
EPSS 0.17355 — modeled likelihood of exploitation activity.EPSS is a daily-changing model output — open the source for today's value.
Severity / affected
CVSS 7.5 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H) · Affected: VMware, vCenter Server. Confirm exact fixed builds in the vendor advisory.CVSS — CNA-assigned (CVE.org), version 3.1, set at disclosure.
Weakness (CWE)
Mapped to CWE-273 CWE-273, CWE-250 Excessive Privileges — weakness family: Authorization / access control.CWE — CNA-assigned (CVE.org); the weakness class drives how the flaw is exploited.
CISA SSVC (triage disposition)
Exploitation: active · Automatable: no · Technical Impact: totalCISA's own stakeholder-specific triage inputs, published in the CVE record (CISA Coordinator role). NOTE: this is CISA's three decision points; the final Act/Attend/Track decision also requires a Mission & Well-being input not published here, so no overall decision is asserted.
Currency of the record
CISA added this to its KEV catalog 64 days after the CVE record was published.KEV lag = CISA-KEV dateAdded − CVE.org datePublished; a floor on how long the known-exploited flaw sat in the public record before the federal catalog listed it. Severity/weakness here is CNA- or CISA-assigned (current at disclosure), independent of NVD's analysis backlog.
02
Who’s exploiting it?
— attribution turns risk into urgencyAttribution not established
No confirmed (advisory-backed) threat-actor attribution is established for this record. Absence of a named actor is not absence of compromise — see Coverage & confidence.
03
Why it matters
— the attack path, told twice: adversary, then board1
Front door — unauthenticated access narrative 1
Attacker
I craft a malicious network packet targeting the privilege-drop validation logic in vCenter Server.
Business
Attacker gains initial network foothold against virtualization management infrastructure.
2
Keys to the kingdom — privilege/identity takeover narrative 2
Attacker
I exploit the improper privilege check to bypass security controls and escalate my access level.
Business
Attacker transitions from limited access to root-level control of the vCenter instance.
3
Lateral reach — past segmentation narrative 3
Attacker
I achieve root privileges on the vCenter Server, enabling full system compromise.
Business
Complete control of virtualization platform allows attacker to access, modify, or destroy all hosted virtual machines and data.
04
What to do
— defensible action- Remediate per the vendor advisory — confirm the fixed build for your version and verify exposure.1
Say it to the boardA vulnerability with this evidence profile is a defensible budget line, not a backlog ticket — fund the change against the proof above.
05
Coverage & confidence
— what we know, and what we don’tEstablished (cited)
Coverage gaps — stated, not hidden
Disclosure & credit2
Catalogued by vmwareCNA
Credited with finding itNo finder is named in the public CVE record or the scanned vendor advisory — attribution scoped to the sources checked.
Found an error? Propose a correction.
A correction is a cited counter-claim — it must cite a source,
gets reviewed by a second human, and is never auto-applied. See the
correction convention and our identity
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