CVE-2024-38812 — Vmware Cloud Foundation
CRITICALCVE-2024-38812 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) CWE-122 vulnerability in broadcom vmware cloud foundation. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2024-11-20) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
The vCenter Server contains a heap-overflow vulnerability in the implementation of the DCERPC protocol. A malicious actor with network access to vCenter Server may trigger this vulnerability…
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2024-11-20. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2024-12-11.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- 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-2024-38812.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2024-38812 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). In the shaded patch-first corner (EPSS 50%+, CVSS 7.0+).
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 395,249 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 50–90% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Description
The vCenter Server contains a heap-overflow vulnerability in the implementation of the DCERPC protocol. A malicious actor with network access to vCenter Server may trigger this vulnerability by sending a specially crafted network packet potentially leading to remote code execution.
Affected Products
vmware cloud foundationbroadcomvmware vcenter serverbroadcomResearch 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 broadcom vmware cloud foundation deployment and check each version against the affected-products list above.
Remediation status
No patch has shipped for CVE-2024-38812 yet — track the broadcom vmware cloud foundation advisory for a fixed release and apply the workarounds below in the meantime.
Mitigate without a patch
Constrain what reaches the vulnerable code: limit the size and shape of untrusted input, isolate the affected component in a sandboxed or least-privileged process, and enable the platform's memory-safety mitigations (ASLR, stack protector, hardened allocator) so an out-of-bounds access is more likely to fail closed than to be exploitable. Alongside that, restrict the management interface to trusted networks and apply the vendor's recommended configuration mitigations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-38812 being exploited in your environment?
Detect and block the exploit chain at execution, on systems you cannot patch yet.