# UNC5174 exploits VMware privilege escalation zero-day in wild

Published: 2026-06-09 · Severity: high · Sectors: government-national, technology, financial-services, healthcare, manufacturing
Canonical: https://vorant.io/reports/27a43a03-85f9-512d-91f1-2ff3efbe15c8/unc5174-exploits-vmware-privilege-escalation-zero-day-in-wild

> Zero-day CVE-2025-41244 in VMware Tools and Aria Operations exploited by UNC5174 since October 2024; allows root privilege escalation.

Multiple privilege escalation vulnerabilities have been discovered in VMware Aria Operations and VMware Tools, with the most critical being CVE-2025-41244. This vulnerability has been actively exploited in the wild since mid-October 2024 by the China-linked threat actor UNC5174. A local attacker with non-administrative privileges on a guest VM running vulnerable VMware Tools and managed by Aria Operations with SDMP enabled can escalate privileges to root, achieving full system compromise.

Additionally, CVE-2025-41245 allows unauthorized credential disclosure of other Aria Operations users, and CVE-2025-41246 permits authenticated access to other guest VMs if the attacker possesses vCenter or ESX credentials. Affected versions include VMware Cloud Foundation Operations prior to 9.0.1.0, VMware Tools prior to 13.0.5.0/13.0.5/12.5.4, and VMware Aria Operations prior to 8.18.5. Immediate patching is critical, particularly for organizations running these components in multi-tenant or high-privilege environments.

Defenders should prioritize immediate patching, implement network segmentation to isolate critical systems, enforce least-privilege access controls, and conduct vulnerability scanning to identify affected systems in their infrastructure.

## Mentioned in this report

- Vulnerabilities: CVE-2025-41244 (KEV), CVE-2025-41245, CVE-2025-41246
- Threat actors: UNC5174

## Detection guidance (public sample)

### VMware Tools Service Discovery Spawning Binary From User-Writable Path

ATT&CK: T1068

VMware Tools (vmtoolsd) or its service-discovery script launching an executable from /tmp, /var/tmp, /dev/shm or /home, consistent with CVE-2025-41244 local root privilege escalation. Auto-generated starting point — validate and tune in your environment before deploying. IOC matches can false-positive on shared infrastructure and decay as adversary infrastructure rotates.

```yaml
title: VMware Tools Service Discovery Spawning Binary From User-Writable Path
id: 5fba22f3-025f-55e7-8faa-8576b5b7e860
status: experimental
description: Detects vmtoolsd or the VMware service discovery script (get-versions.sh)
  launching an executable from a user-writable directory such as /tmp, /var/tmp, /dev/shm
  or /home. This matches the CVE-2025-41244 pattern, where an unprivileged user plants
  a binary that the root-running VMware Tools service discovery then executes. Generalises
  on the parent/child relation and the writable path, not on a specific binary name.
references:
- https://www.cisecurity.org/advisory/multiple-vulnerabilities-in-vmware-aria-operations-and-vmware-tools-could-allow-for-privilege-escalation_2025-092
tags:
- attack.privilege-escalation
- attack.t1068
logsource:
  category: process_creation
  product: linux
detection:
  selection_parent_tools:
    ParentImage|endswith:
    - /vmtoolsd
    - /vmware-toolbox-cmd
    Image|startswith:
    - /tmp/
    - /var/tmp/
    - /dev/shm/
    - /home/
  selection_parent_script:
    ParentCommandLine|contains: get-versions.sh
    Image|startswith:
    - /tmp/
    - /var/tmp/
    - /dev/shm/
    - /home/
  condition: 1 of selection_*
falsepositives:
- Administrators deliberately running custom VMware Tools scripts that live under
  /home or /tmp
- Software installed in a home directory that is legitimately discovered by Aria Operations
  service discovery
level: high
author: Vorant
```

Behavioural rules are generated from public reporting — validate in your environment before deploying.

Source reporting: https://www.cisecurity.org/advisory/multiple-vulnerabilities-in-vmware-aria-operations-and-vmware-tools-could-allow-for-privilege-escalation_2025-092

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