CVE-2024-37085 — Cloud Foundation
MEDIUMCVE-2024-37085 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.8) Improper Authentication vulnerability in vmware cloud foundation. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2024-07-30) and has been used in ransomware campaigns — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
VMware ESXi contains an authentication bypass vulnerability. A malicious actor with sufficient Active Directory (AD) permissions can gain full access to an ESXi host that was previously…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2024-07-30 — including use in ransomware campaigns. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2024-08-20.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2024-37085.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2024-37085 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 395,249 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 10–50% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
VMware ESXi contains an authentication bypass vulnerability. A malicious actor with sufficient Active Directory (AD) permissions can gain full access to an ESXi host that was previously configured to use AD for user management https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/09/joining-vsphere-hosts-to-active-directory.html by re-creating the configured AD group ('ESXi Admins' by default) after it was deleted from AD.
Affected Products
cloud foundationvmwareesxivmwareResearch 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
Vendor / applianceDetect
Inventory every vmware cloud foundation deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.
Remediation status
No patch has shipped for CVE-2024-37085 yet — track the vmware cloud foundation advisory for a fixed release and apply the workarounds 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. Alongside that, restrict the management interface to trusted networks and apply the vendor's recommended configuration mitigations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-37085 being exploited in your environment?
Detect and block the exploit chain at execution, on systems you cannot patch yet.