CVE-2023-20867
LOWCVE-2023-20867 is a low-severity (CVSS 3.9) Improper Authentication vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-06-23) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2023-06-23. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2023-07-14.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2023-20867.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2023-20867 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 394,803 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 10–50% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
A fully compromised ESXi host can force VMware Tools to fail to authenticate host-to-guest operations, impacting the confidentiality and integrity of the guest virtual machine.
Affected Products
debian linuxdebianfedorafedoraprojecttoolsvmwareResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
VulnerabilityDetect
Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).
Remediation status
No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2023-20867 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Put an independent control in front of the weakness: restrict the affected endpoint or interface to trusted networks, require an additional authentication factor or proxy-level check, and invalidate existing sessions and credentials in case the flaw has already been used.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
Given the requirement that an attacker must have root access over ESXi to exploit the vulnerability, it is recommended to review access policies based on security best practices.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | open-vm-tools-0:11.0.5-3.el7_9.6 | RHSA-2023:3944 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | open-vm-tools-0:12.1.5-2.el8_8 | RHSA-2023:3949 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2 Advanced Update Support | open-vm-tools-0:11.0.0-4.el8_2.2 | RHSA-2023:3945 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Advanced Mission Critical Update Support | open-vm-tools-0:11.2.0-2.el8_4.2 | RHSA-2023:3946 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 Extended Update Support | open-vm-tools-0:11.3.5-1.el8_6.2 | RHSA-2023:3950 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | open-vm-tools-0:12.1.5-1.el9_2.1 | RHSA-2023:3948 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.0 Extended Update Support | open-vm-tools-0:11.3.5-1.el9_0.2 | RHSA-2023:3947 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-20867 in your dependencies?
Find it across , including transitive dependencies.