VMware has issued a set of security updates to address multiple vulnerabilities found in vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi), Workstation, Fusion, and Tools. Exploitation of one of these vulnerabilities could allow a remote attacker to take control of an affected system.
VMware Workstation contains vulnerabilities that may allow a windows-based Virtual Machine (VM) to trigger a heap-based buffer overflow. Exploitation could lead to arbitrary code execution. Another vulnerability could allow a Windows-based VM to corrupt memory, leading to arbitrary code execution. In both cases, exploitation is only possible if virtual printing has been enabled in VMware Workstation -- NOTE: this feature is not enabled by default. VMware identified a local privilege escalation on Virtual Machines that run OSX, stating they could be affected by memory being handled incorrectly, leading to NULL pointer dereference vulnerabilities. The issue can be remediated by installing a fixed version of VMware Tools on affected OSX VMs directly. Or, the fixed version of Tools can be installed through ESXi or Fusion after first updating to a version of ESXi or Fusion that ships with a fixed version of VMware Tools.Also, a DLL hijacking issue can affect the Workstation installer causing DLL files to be loaded by the application improperly. This could enable an attacker to load a DLL file to execute arbitrary code.
Finally, the Workstation installer was also found to contain an insecure executable loading vulnerability. This bug could enable an attacker to execute an exe file placed in the same directory as Installer with the name "setup64.exe," allowing the attacker to execute arbitrary code. VMware administrators are encouraged to review the VMware Security Advisory VMSA-2016-0014and apply the necessary updates to the affected systems as soon as possible.