The VMX process (vmware-vmx.exe) process configures and hosts an instance of VM. As is common with desktop virtualization platforms the VM host usually has privileged access into the OS such as mapping physical memory which represents a security risk. To mitigate this the VMX process is created with an elevated integrity level by the authentication daemon (vmware-authd.exe) which runs at SYSTEM. This prevents a non-administrator user opening the process and abusing its elevated access. Unfortunately the process is created as the desktop user which results in the elevated process sharing resources such as COM registrations with the normal user who can modify the registry to force an arbitrary DLL to be loaded into the VMX process. Affects VMware Workstation Windows version 14.1.5 (on Windows 10). Also tested on VMware Player version 15.

Malware Analysis Part I - This guide is the first part of a series of three where we begin with setting up the very foundation of a analysis environment; the analysis station. It will give the reader a quick recap in the different phases of malware analysis along with a few examples. It will then guide the reader in how to build an analysis station optimized for these phases. Along with this, the guide also introduces a workflow that will give the reader a good kick-start in performing malware analysis on a professional basis, not only on a technical level.

Bull / IBM AIX Clusterwatch / Watchware suffers from having trivial admin credentials, system file writes, and OS command injection vulnerabilities.