CVE-2024-37081: 
vSphere vCenter Server vulnerability analysis and mitigation

The vCenter Server contains multiple local privilege escalation vulnerabilities (CVE-2024-37081) due to misconfiguration of sudo, discovered and disclosed on June 18, 2024. This vulnerability affects VMware vCenter Server versions 8.0 and 7.0, as well as VMware Cloud Foundation versions 5.x and 4.x. The issue was responsibly reported by Matei "Mal" Badanoiu from Deloitte Romania (VMware Advisory).

The vulnerability has been assigned a CVSSv3 base score of 7.8 (High severity) with the following vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H. This indicates that the vulnerability requires local access, low attack complexity, and low privileges to exploit, with no user interaction needed. The impact affects confidentiality, integrity, and availability, all rated as high (VMware Advisory).

If successfully exploited, this vulnerability allows an authenticated local user with non-administrative privileges to elevate their privileges to root on the vCenter Server Appliance. This level of access could potentially give an attacker complete control over the affected system (VMware Advisory).

The vulnerability can be exploited by an authenticated local user with non-administrative privileges. The attack vector requires the attacker to have local access to the system. No specific exploit complexity or additional user interaction is required beyond the initial authentication (VMware Advisory).

VMware has released patches to address this vulnerability. Users should apply the updates listed in the 'Fixed Version' column of the Response Matrix: vCenter Server 8.0 should update to version 8.0 U2d, and vCenter Server 7.0 should update to version 7.0 U3r. For Cloud Foundation 5.x and 4.x, users should refer to KB88287. No workarounds are available for this vulnerability (VMware Advisory).