CVE-2025-22224VMware ESXi and Workstation TOCTOU Race Condition Vulnerability
CVE-2025-22224 is a time-of-check to time-of-use race in VMware ESXi and Workstation, rated high (8.2 on CVSS 3.1).
Why this priority: Exploited in the wild: listed in CISA's KEV catalog.
Published · Updated · NVD status: Analyzed
What it is
Something is checked, then changed by an attacker before it is used.
How it is reached
An attacker can exploit it by someone who can already run code or sign in on the machine, with an administrator account, and nobody has to click anything.
What an attacker gains
A successful attack can read the data it protects, change data or behaviour and take it offline. In practice, this kind of flaw lets an attacker win a timing window to bypass a check or corrupt shared state. The damage can spread past the vulnerable component into others.
Is it being exploited?
CISA added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2025-03-04: it is being exploited in the wild. EPSS estimates a 1.6% chance of exploitation activity in the next 30 days, higher than 75% of scored CVEs.
What to do
- Treat it as urgent: it is on CISA's KEV list. CISA's deadline for US federal agencies: 2025-03-25.
- Upgrade VMware ESXi and Workstation to 17.6.3 or later.
- Limit who can run code or sign in on the hosts that run it.
- Check exposed instances for signs of compromise, not only for the version.
Description from NVD
VMware ESXi, and Workstation contain a TOCTOU (Time-of-Check Time-of-Use) vulnerability that leads to an out-of-bounds write. A malicious actor with local administrative privileges on a virtual machine may exploit this issue to execute code as the virtual machine's VMX process running on the host.
What this means for your architecture.
A CVE names a product. Whether it matters depends on where that product sits in your systems: what reaches it, which trust boundary it guards and what it can reach once compromised. Veriom maps your components, their relationships and your trust boundaries from your code, cloud and delivery evidence, so you can see where a component like this sits. The radar itself does not look at your systems.
Components it touches
- Operating systems on servers, workstations or devices. Everything on the host inherits the flaw.
- Request handlers and jobs that share state. The flaw sits between concurrent requests or processes.
Trust boundaries in play
- Host boundary. The attacker needs a foothold on the machine first; the flaw turns a small foothold into a bigger one.
- Isolation between components. The impact crosses out of the vulnerable component into others it should be isolated from.
- Between concurrent requests or processes. An attacker who crosses it can win a timing window to bypass a check or corrupt shared state.
Questions to answer about your own systems
- Where does VMware ESXi and Workstation run in your systems, and at which version?
- Which of those hosts also run code or users you do not fully trust?
- What can it reach once compromised: which data stores, secrets and services?
Sources
- CVE records and CVSS scores from the NVD CVE API. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.
- Exploitation status from CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
- Exploit likelihood from FIRST’s Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS), refreshed daily.
- Explanations are written by Veriom from fixed templates over each record’s data, not by a person reviewing each CVE. Descriptions are quoted from the records as published.