VMware released updates for several of its products on Thursday to address a critical vulnerability.
The VMware Client Integration Plugin (CIP) provides access to a virtual machine’s console in the vSphere Web Client, and allows users to connect virtual devices that reside on a client computer to a virtual machine.
According to VMware, the Client Integration Plugin doesn’t handle session content safely, allowing an attacker to launch man-in-the-middle (MitM) or session hijacking attacks by getting the vSphere Web Client user to visit a specially crafted website.
The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2016-2076, exists in versions of CIP shipped with vCenter Server 5.5 (U3a – U3c) and 6.0, vCloud Director 5.5.5 on Windows, and vRealize Automation Identity Appliance 6.2.4 on Linux. The flaw has been patched with the release of vCenter Server 5.5 U3d and 6.0 U2, vCloud Director 5.5.6, and vRealize Automation Identity Appliance 6.2.4.1.
VMware has informed customers that they first need to update vCenter Server, vCloud Director and vRealize Automation Identity Appliance. Then, they must also update CIP on the system from which the vSphere Web Client is used to connect to vCenter Server, vCloud Director and vRealize Automation Identity Manager.
This is the fourth round of security updates released by VMware this year. The company previously patched a privilege escalation vulnerability in VMware Tools, a remote code execution flaw in the glibc library, and a cross-site scripting (XSS) bug in vRealize products.