CVE-2023-34059 — open-vm-tools contains a file descriptor hijack vulnerability in the vmware-user

open-vm-tools contains a file descriptor hijack vulnerability in the vmware-user-suid-wrapper. A malicious actor with non-root privileges may be able to hijack the /dev/uinput file descriptor allowing them to simulate user inputs.

01What is this vulnerability?

open-vm-tools contains a file descriptor hijack vulnerability in the vmware-user-suid-wrapper. A malicious actor with non-root privileges may be able to hijack the /dev/uinput file descriptor allowing them to simulate user inputs.

02Affected products

Vendor	Product	Versions
n	a / open	vm-tools — 11.0.0

03Active exploitation status

Not currently listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. EPSS is the best forward-looking signal — see the EPSS row above.

04Recommended remediation

• Patch to a fixed version listed in the vendor advisory (see references below).
• Mitigate with WAF rules, network egress filters, or feature flags where the patch is not yet available.
• Hunt historical logs for exploitation indicators — see Detection signatures below.

05Technical details

For the full vendor write-up, exploit chains, and reference implementations, see the references list in section 09.

06Detection signatures

Ask SARA in chat to draft a starting detection for this CVE in your stack of choice.

07Related CVEs

No directly-cited follow-up CVEs in the KB record for this advisory. The references list in section 09 carries the vendor cross-references.

08Timeline

• Published: 2023-10-27T04:53:31.893Z
• Last modified: 2025-03-06T15:39:21.712Z

09References

• www.vmware.com — https://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2023-0024.html
• www.openwall.com — http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2023/10/27/3
• www.openwall.com — http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2023/10/27/2
• www.debian.org — https://www.debian.org/security/2023/dsa-5543
• lists.debian.org — https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2023/11/msg00002.html
• lists.fedoraproject.org — https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[email protected]…
• lists.fedoraproject.org — https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[email protected]…
• lists.fedoraproject.org — https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[email protected]…
• www.openwall.com — http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2023/11/26/1
• www.openwall.com — http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2023/11/27/1